


aeon

by ChrysanthemumDeceit



Series: paroxysm [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: (godly) blood, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Slow Burn, Smut, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrysanthemumDeceit/pseuds/ChrysanthemumDeceit
Summary: as much as he hated to admit it: nothing was meant to last forever, despite the bonds foraged in the most unlikely of relationships.
Relationships: Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas/Reader
Series: paroxysm [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742119
Kudos: 8





	aeon

**I**

As his eyes opened to stare at a cracked and begrimed ceiling, and as the rough linens under his fingertips were not enticing enough to make him want to return to the slumber he dearly longed for, the god of Death let out a sigh. Flicker of a flame next to his bedside waning with each passing second, it was nearly at the end of its wick and he would have to replace it soon enough. Hands raised to rub the notion of sleep from his eyes, he could not tell what time of day it was by simply looking outside the small window opposite his bed. Instead he looked to a small pocket-watch on his nightstand to find that it was somewhere around noon, earning him a groan of discontentment as his attention returned to the small, darkened room. The home he had was neither lively nor something he wished to stay in for long, even if it was a place he could call his own. It was dark and full of shadows, unaware if they were living or not, he dared not ask but he wasn’t particularly interested in knowing either. Yukhei’s feet hit the algid, sloe granite slates of the floor with a slap, shuffling across his room as he discarded his nightclothes with reluctant hands. Cold metal knob of the wardrobe’s door under his grasp, he repeats his anguished sigh and opens it only to be met with a wall of black garments.

Wong Yukhei hated the color black. Hated that it was deemed his color, the color of pestilence and plague, of necrosis and death. It hung around him like a funeral shroud, a mist of darkness that exuded from his very essence despite any attempts to quell it. He wasthe smoke of an extinguished flame, the rot of decaying wood, the last breath of a being leaving the world. Everything that the Underworld represented and everything that the Over did not. In a different life, a different mindset, he may have resented the notion more so than he does now, yet he was born into this world, swallowed by the inky miasma of gloom and breathed in the solemness of it all. Even now the unrelenting shade adorned him, any other color looking far too garish on his figure for his taste. He hasn’t touched anything pink for at least a century. Yellow far too out of the question. Although he can appreciate such vividness, for the only time he can see such colors is when the spirits of the dead await him as he returns to his post or on the rare occasion he travels to the world above.

At times he felt like there was more to him than a color or a simple, overlying term such as ‘Death,’ but he had no means to vocalize that to anyone as it would be met with a laughter of sorts and a wave of a hand to dismiss him. The world he dwelled in was unliked by most, scorned from those who would venture here in the afterlife and dreaded by the gods that resided in the heavens. He could never understand why, it wasn’t his fault that this was his role to play, he was merely the one who oversaw each gentle passing of a being, never the violent, as that was left to a more brooding kin. Yukhei needed peace. A reprieve from the dismal nature of his present, a distraction from his past and a negligence of his future. But time was never linear, he knew that as such when a Roman politician, Maya shaman and a shogun from the Tokugawa era had shown up at the gates of the Underworld that very morning. All confused, all needing some sort of affirmation that they’d died and the heaven, hell or purgatory they sought wasn’t necessarily invalid. Just ever-changing.

He had seen them inducted into the ranks of the dead, forgoing the growing line of the deceased that was ever present and instead joined the three spirits and crossed Acheron to find solid footing on the other side. The judges must’ve passed their sentencing already, and Yukhei wondered which three kings it had been to drop the gavel this time. Looking back as the small, wooden ferry departed the shore to the line of deceased, he pondered on just how long they’d been waiting. Humans who had died in high positions tended to get processed faster and it wasn’t a decision Yukhei could argue against as it was the way things had worked since the beginning of this admittedly flawed system.

Unsteady feet exiting the ferry, the boatman gave him nothing more than a passing glance as Yukhei turned back to make sure the group was still present. He could recall a time that a spirit had fallen, or perhaps tried to escape, overboard. They’d dissolved into nothing, no lingering voice or presence of a soul remained. It had perplexed Yukhei at the time, for he had been newly appointed, unfamiliar with the ways that the Underworld functioned. It had terrified him, as he was unacquainted to this newly bred beast. Now he knew better than to be so indifferent to the spirits, for they had all lived lives worth seeing through to their end, even if they did not want to see it themselves. Names written down onto a list of the departed, coins and valuables taken by the ferryman, Yukhei walked ahead of the group, away from the smoky waters of the river and further into the depths of hell.

Stony crags aligning the walkway, a hand raised to rub at his tired eyes as his feet dragged along the weathered ground. There’d been an influx of souls in the past week and Yukhei had half the mind to ask his brother to put him into a deep slumber so he could actually find a moment’s rest from some of their incessant wailing.

“The Mares are out today,” A familiar voice emerging from the crowd behind him, distant echoes of the spirits as Yukhei watched a figure emerge from their ghastly forms. It’s as if the walls had ears. “Just thought I’d let you know. 

“Are they really?” Yukhei shook his head. The Mares of Diomedes were, in their lifetime, a thing to be feared. Flesh-eating and monstrous, that attitude had only followed them into the afterlife, consuming the spirit of any unlucky soul who may just wander in their path.

“Baigujing two days ago and now this. Thanks for telling me,” his voice lowered as they approached the edge of a large field. The stony walls that had previously aligned the path disappeared into a seemingly endless space, haze of the beyond far too thick to see an end to the expanse. Ghostly faces of the Underworld inhabitants passed, phantom figures that wandered and wondered, placated in hell and stuck in their mortal ways. Looking up to the false sky darkened with faux night, a substitute moon in place as the Underworld wasn’t allowed such privilege of Diane’s light, he sighed, wondering if the day were to be like every other that had passed him by.

A thunderous roar echoed across the fields of the Elysian plains as Yukhei walked the perimeter with his brother. The tall stalks of gray-green grass spread out like an ocean before him. With his hands at his sides, a crippling dread seized his chest as the roar only grew in volume the longer he stayed. A mass of darkness oncoming, accompanying the roar as he peered, searching for the source of the noise through the shallowness of black. A frown beginning to show on his lips as the mass approached, thudding rapturously onto the otherwise morbidly serene scene. The horse’s hooves thudded across the open plain, long stalks of grass battered down by the barrage of beasts as black as pitch. Snorting into the cold air, disrupting the flow of the lenient time that saturated the space. Spirits of the damned and pardoned alike fleeing as the black mass of creatures expand their gait, chasing an unseen dream. Lithe bodies, gaunt with skeletal figmentation and the wanton need to rear the primordial head of a creature wanting to escape from bondage and the Underworld itself.

“Don’t you ever want to go up?” A voice dragging Yukhei out of the thoughts racing around his head such as the Mares that cross his vision. The hooves sinking into the hellish gray earth below, his attention turned to the figure now standing next to him. Brow fraught with contemplation, a bitten lip before he spoke once more, “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Dejun,” a short laugh, the breathiness of it dissipating into the ether as the familiar face spoke to him, Yukhei turned then to fully face the younger. “I don’t want to promulgate the mortal’s views of us. You’ve seen what’s happened to those Overworld gods, imagine them doing that to us. Besides, I was just up there a few months ago.”

“At a festival dedicated to you, Yukhei. You never care unless it’s about you.” Disgruntled frown appearing, “You barely talk to anyone besides Kunhang and I, wouldn’t it be nice to meet a new face?”

“I just don’t have the need or want to return if it doesn’t involve any affair I’m interested in.” Shoulders shrugging, glancing to the herd that now had distanced itself from the pair, beginning to disappear over the next horizon in an endless loop. “Who do you want me to meet?”

“There’s this… girl,” a flush of pink dusting across Dejun’s face, almost hidden in the ethereal glow of the hanging moon. Yukhei’s brow furrowed as he noticed Dejun go inward with his thoughts, thinking of how to piece his words together. “I’d like to introduce you to her, she’s met Kunhang already and I think it’s only right she meets you too.”

“She’s human? Is that why you’ve never brought her here” Yukhei questioned, the answer only solidified by his brother’s silence and hands wrung together in quiet anxiety. “Dejun, are you insane?” A moment of disdain soaking through his skin and wrapping a barbed vine around his insides. He and Dejun stayed silent for a moment before Yukhei spoke up again, trying to rationalize the quickly changing perception of his brother.

“Did Love shoot you?” The thorned arrow spikes were only ever seen in the quiver of the ancient being, if he was lucky his brother may have only pricked himself to fall into such fixation with a mortal.

Had Dejun’s eyes rolled any more, they might’ve just shown the entire whites. “Xuxi please,” a pleading in his brother’s voice as he took a step, reaching out to reason with the elder, “I’m only asking this small favor of you.”

Attention returned to the grassy plains, a sinking feeling continuing to plague his insides as the scattered visages of the dead had begun to slowly populate the area the Mares had torn through. Lower lip caught between his teeth, a painfully slow nod, “When do we leave?”

There was no set way to enter or exit the Underworld, nothing concrete had been in place since the fall of Rome. Instead it’s found when it’s least expected or wanted, in a basement of a long-forgotten home, at the base of a canyon too far to travel down safely. But other times it could be a simple crack in the side of a stony-faced cliff, as it was now. The transition from the Underworld’s entrance to the dank cave was lost in the darkness of the abyss, Yukhei’s hand trailed along the stony surface, lightly enough as to not cut his hand on the jagged rock as the first sliver of morning signified that the exit was near. 

Yukhei’s eyes caught the glimmer of a golden circlet atop a raven-haired head as he emerged from the mouth of the cave, wincing as the shine of gold flared into his vision. “You didn’t tell me he was coming.” It’s not that he was upset, a little taken aback since the last he’d seen the mischievous deity had been when he was tricked out of several hundred silver coins.

“Good to see you, too, Yukhei,” A smile from the newcomer, “I hear the old gods want to make some changes to the Underworld. Make it more modern,” Kunhang’s voice echoed around the clearing as they left the small cave. His hair was pushed back as he sat atop a nearby boulder embedded into the earth “The Tartarus model doesn’t seem to be working anymore.”

“You’re telling me,” A shake of his head as Yukhei looked up to the blue sky, squinting at the harshness of the sun. It seemed to be telling him to retreat back underground, that he wasn’t wanted up here, wasn’t needed. “I can’t imagine that would ever pass through the council, we’re far too overloaded with souls to try and do anything about it.”

“So, where’s this lady-friend of yours? She said she’d bring me tea leaves the last time I saw her,” Kunhang glances to Dejun, who looked as if he were going to combust from anxiousness. “Dì almighty you look awful. 

Dejun’s gaze passes over Yukhei’s hardened one before turning to Kunhang. “There’s a festival happening in town, she invited us, so we’ll meet her there.”

“No use sitting around here then,” A small grunt as Kunhang pushed himself off of the rock, landing on his feet with a small, hollow thud onto the forest floor. Dried leaves cracked and fel apart underfoot as the three began to venture forwards, Dejun falling into the lead to guide the others towards the small town several hundred meters through the thick greenery.

Yukhei took a moment to listen to the birds sing, shrill voices carrying through the thickets of green and blooms riddled in the branches and vines that wove their way around the trunks of ancient trees. He’d been to this realm more times than he could count, mostly in winter and rarely in spring. It was as if he’d stepped foot into an entirely different world. The acute amusement befell him when they crossed the threshold of a small village some minutes later. Several merchant stalls aligning the street, the town was nearly barren of life despite it being such a bright and warm day. Listening further, the gentle sounds of strings and several other instruments echoed throughout the empty streets, as if to call out to the deities to venture forward and find the source. “Where exactly are we?” The distant sound of gulls and the crash of a shore indiscernible for him to try and place the town anywhere on a map.

“Small town, middle of nowhere,” Kunhang’s shoulders shrugged as they walked, “It’s quaint, not much to do here, though. Barely any crime at all for this time— What year is it again, Dejun?”

“Sixteen something, I think.” Dejun thought for a moment before nodding, “Maybe a little earlier but I’m not too sure.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t taken the initiative and pushed it along.” Yukhei’s eyebrow piqued at Kunhang, “Crime seems rather up your alley.”

“How dare you accuse me of such vile deeds,” Hand held atop his heart, crinkling the light blue fabric of his linen shirt, “I would never rob a cute place like this; however, I may have inspired others to do so.” The trace of a smile visible from the corner of Yukhei’s periphery. 

“You are an absolute fiend,” a sigh from Dejun as Yukhei let out a bark of a laugh. The three near the festival’s edge in a few moment’s time. It lay at a crossover between the town’s square and an open field, a thick forest encapsulating the area but not to the extent it felt claustrophobic. The music grew louder, the chatter of voices and the splendid hues of every color swirling around as a few townspeople had begun to dance along to the mesmerizing rhythm that seemed to ooze from every instrument. Before the three step under an archway woven from juniper branches and other assorted flora, they were stopped by a girl with a basket of flower crowns. Yukhei could easily tell that she’s not human, ears slightly pointed at the helix, an unnatural color to her eyes. She reached into the plethora of flowers and procured a crown for the three of them, the lilac color of her irises shining in the midday sun.

A crown of lavender blooms for Dejun, intertwined with forget-me-nots as the sweet scent of the first flower almost makes the god yawn. Daffodils adorning Kunhang’s, who appeared slightly confused at the choice, thinking the flower an odd pick but wore it, nonetheless. Asphodel and cypress braided together, handed to Yukhei for he was too tall for the girl who’d been handing them out to place it atop his head. He gave her a small smile before following the other two into the depths of the festival.

Before Yukhei found himself truly lost in the ocean of people, he tugged on Kunhang’s shirt, to pull him back to fall in line with his own footsteps as they trailed Dejun. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”

“What?” Kunhang’s eyes wandered the space, “A party in a place this small? Kind of, could’ve been a bigger venue, that’s for sure.”

“No not that, I’m talking about Dejun and,” Yukhei’s brow furrowed, realizing his lack of knowledge on the topic, “he didn’t even tell me her name.” 

“Are you nervous?” Kunhang’s eyes pierced into Yukhei’s, “Anxious? She’s not a bad person, Yukhei.”

“I just don’t want Dejun to do anything he’ll regret,” He leaned down, situating himself near the other’s ear for a moment to whisper, “you know how mortals are.”

“It actually sounds like you’re jealous,” a short laugh from the deity as they continued forward, “don’t worry about it too much.”

The festival was wrought with an abundance of life unseen in the dregs of the Underworld. Boisterous people, drunk on life and probably the varieties of alcohol Yukhei had seen dotted around several stalls. It was a blurry haze as the three shuffled through the crowds, Dejun looking for a familiar face among the masses as Yukhei and Kunhang only worried about not treading on the feet of someone else. It wasn’t not until he catches sight of a girl waving towards the three of them, a smile plastered on her face as she looks to Dejun, that Yukhei wordlessly deters from the group’s course and wanders off into the crowd. Feet pulled by a current unseen with barren eyes, Yukhei navigated his way through the large mass of people in attendance and escaped into the shallow depths of the wooded forest, seeking solitude from it all. He wasn’t ready to face the object of his brother’s affections quite yet.

Sounds of the festival fading with every step, he walked until the bustle was a gentle murmur and was almost drowned out by the ambient noises of nature. “This is so stupid,” a scoff escaped his lips as he began to move towards a patch of forest seemingly empty. “All this way for a mortal girl. I have a job— Have a duty— And why do I feel as if I’m going to sneeze,” hand brought to his cheek, rubbing the undersides of his eyes as they brim with tears. Nose beginning to redden, no prior trip to the mortal realm had incurred such a wrath on his senses, overwhelming and almost suffocating them. He mostly ventured to the Overworld in the dead of winter, as not to disrupt the flow of the seasons with his energy, but he’d learned to suppress it over the years so as to not cause such a disturbance. Yet now he had half a mind to tear up and kill every plant around him for making him feel this way.

“It’s probably the ragweed,” A voice ringing out around him before he looked through bleary eyes to see someone standing in front of him, someone who’d heard him speaking to himself. He doesn’t have the ability to think about where you’d appeared from or to be but so embarrassed, eyes too reddened and senses too overloaded with the seasonal inconvenience. He had nearly been choking on the blooming life. “Here,” a kind tone to your voice as you outstretched your hand to his, “most mortals try not to venture out too much when the flowers bloom, but they’re so pretty aren’t they?” Eyes looking to the dogwood blossoms of a nearby tree. “But I can help you with that, we’re susceptible to allergies but it’s a little more curable for beings like us.”

Before he deigned it an inconceivable thought, his hand reached out to meet yours, instant relief flooding his senses as his fingers brushed over your palm. For the first time since venturing to the world above, he feels as if he can breathe in a fresh breath of air without being burdened by a stuffy nose. “Did you come here with anyone?” You questioned as you returned your attention to him. 

“I’m uh- I’m here with my brother and a friend.” Slightly taken aback by the bluntness of this first meeting, his curious gaze now trying to put a name to a face. “Who are you?”

“The patron of this festival,” a casual look past him, towards the masses of people in the square beyond the forest. “Why do I have the pleasure of hosting Death himself?”

“How do you know who I am?”

“A wreath of flowers shouldn’t wilt so quickly,” eyes trailing up to the crown atop his head, blooms now discolored and losing their vitality the longer they touched him. “And the black doesn’t really help you blend in, I could only assume.” You say nothing of knowing the meanings of said flowers, just more so curious to know if the nymphs who’d given it to him knew exactly who or what he was.

“We came to visit the festival, my brother wanted to come,” Yukhei neglected to explain the full extent of their visit, still somewhat resenting the fact that he’d agreed to come in the first place. Noticing his touch still remained on yours he pulled away, dropping his hand to his side with a lingering buzz still flittering through his fingertips. “Shouldn’t you be over there?” A gentle flick of his head towards the festivities behind him.

“This happens almost every year,” Gaze returned to settle on his, your shoulders shrugging loftily at your own words. “I know you have a few too, doesn’t it ever get tiring?”

“Sometimes,” A return of your shrug, “But it’s an excuse to neglect the Underworld for a little while, I can’t be but so upset.”

Before you allowed yourself to question that statement, wondering why he would ever want a break from his duties, you offer a small, sympathetic smile, “You should go back to your friends; I still have some things to do before I make myself known. If you don’t mind, don’t tell anyone you saw me, alright?”

“Alright,” it comes out more so a question than an affirmation of your wishes. “I get that you’re the goddess of this festival and all, but what’s your name?”

Your answer resounds as the whispering of the tree leaves gently brushing upon one another as a breeze rattles through them, Yukhei had only glanced away to look at the festivities once more before turning to find you vanished. A rub of his eyes as he thinks it some sort of hallucination before letting out a bereaved sigh and trudging back to the festival grounds.

**II**

The conclusion of the event had ended at sundown, with the last rays of light disappearing over the horizon you were left with a handful of nymphs to help tidy up the field. The portion laid out for the party had seen the ground trampled and the greenery once abundant on the earth muddled into a brown mess. It would all grow back in time, so you weren’t too upset, perhaps a little miffed at how many drunkards managed to pass out in the most unthinkable of places. One had managed to climb up a tree and sleep precariously on one of its branches, it took almost five of you to wake and usher him out without the fear of him falling and injuring himself. In the glow of several fire lit braziers you found the solitude of night hang over you, the ephemeral radiance of the moon on your back when you walked as the screech of cicadas rung around you, a few flowers in hand, to a tree on the outskirts of the town’s edge.

Had it not been for the soft sounds of arrow hitting arrow in the quiver slung around his shoulder, you’re not sure that you would’ve heard Ten sneaking up behind you as you sat under the large, twisting oak. Bark rough under your fingers as you turned to give your friend a smile, motioning him forwards and then tapping the ground beside you.

“Sorry I missed your party,” apology falling from his lips as he sat next to you, removing the quiver of arrows from his back, and leaning it against the tree. “I promise I’ll make it to the next one,” toothy grin as he detects no disappointment coming from you.

“You say that every year,” A shake of your head and a roll of your eyes. “Something’s telling me that you just don’t want to come.” Hands fiddling with the knotted blooms in your grasp, you shifted to place the crown you’d made for him atop his head before he had a moment to protest.

“Spring is the season of love, I’m a little busy, and you wouldn’t believe what happened to Yangyang today,” his own hand reaching up to brush his fingers atop the aster’s purple blooms. “Maybe you should hold it in the wintertime.”

“You wish,” Never the type to stay still for long, you couldn’t blame him. Ten’s whims changed about as quickly as the wind did. “What did Yangyang do?”

“He pricked himself,” a scoff dissipated into the coolness of the nighttime as he motioned towards the quiver settled behind him, “on my arrows.”

Brow furrowed for only a moment, as if to think upon the consequence of the younger’s action. Realization coming all too late, you looked to Ten with widened eyes, “Did he—?”

“Thankfully not,” sigh escaped from his lips, “I got him to one of those prophetesses who deal with that, only after blindfolding him and dragging him there.” Short laugh as he rested his back against the tree once more, “Anything more exciting happen here?”

“Well,” elongating the word as if to draw apprehension from your friend, “we had a special visitor.”

“It wasn’t Sicheng, was it? I’ve been telling him to stop trying to regulate all of these—"

“It was Death— Yukhei? I never knew his name until today.” At one point you’d heard one of his group mates call to him, only making that connection since you’d forgotten to ask it during your brief encounter. The way it settled on your tongue weighed differently than any other, you wondered if it was because of his godly disposition compared to yours. “But he was here along with his brother and another god and a mortal. I saw all of them as they were leaving.”

“Which brother? Pain, Torture, Sleep or Paranoia?” Ten began to list off the names before raising a hand to stop himself before he got carried away. The disbelief was present on his features, yet something else, perhaps discontentment, lied beneath. “No, don’t tell me. What were they doing here?”

“They were,” the insides of your cheeks bitten, “just visiting? It really didn’t seem like they were here to do anything.”

“Don’t mess with the Underworld gods,” Ten’s words fell sharply from his tongue, dripping with a rancor you hadn’t heard but on two prior occasions. The lack of understanding on your brow ever so concerning to him. “I’m serious. There isn’t one without some sort of baggage they lug around like they’re trying to hide a dead body. Actually,” a pause as he thought on it, “I’m pretty sure that some of them are. But anyway, there’s a reason they’re there, and a reason we’re here.” Motioning to the earth below and then to the forest and sky above the two of you.

“He was nice enough though.” Yukhei’s touch had lingered on your skin like some sort of unseen film, it had been cold, without any semblance of warmth to it as his hand had stayed pressed against yours. “Actually, I kind of felt sorry for him,” your own hand receding into your lap as you spoke, voice lowered as you speak once again, “He looked upset.”

“I would be too if I had to look at dead people all day.” Scoff falling from his lips as he leaned his head back on the tree, strands of his hair clinging to the wood as the petals of the crown were crushed. “There’s nothing even slightly romantic about it all, everyone there’s just doom, gloom and not much else.”

“Then why can’t I indulge them in some non-death oriented past times? They seemed to enjoy the dancing.”

“You of all people should know not to go parading around with them,” his hand moved upwards to play with a few loose strands of your hair, his eyes caught on the hue in the firelight when a small smile graced him once more, “I’m tired of all this Underworld talk, why don’t we head back to mine and I’ll tell you about this artist I’m planning on inspiring later?”

“I don’t need to hear about your escapades,” a laugh as you gently shoved him away, “but if you have any of that rosehip tea you can consider me there.”

“If all it takes to get you to listen to me talk is having tea in stock,” a shake of his head as he moved to push himself off of the ground, palms brushing against his pants as he then extended a hand to you, “then I think I’ll have to make sure to have it for the next century or two.”

**III**

When Yukhei exited the Underworld for the second time that spring, he noted two things as the sun broke through the rocky ingress that he’d traveled through. One, it had gotten substantially warmer than his first visit some months ago, the sun’s rays feeling as if it were singing every unclothed part of his skin. And two, the air was thick with humidity and the smell of honeysuckle, wafting through the air in a zephyr of redolent sweetness. The air clung to him like a damp cloth, settling into the fabric of his shirt and sticking to his skin as perspiration trailed down the sides of his face. He could remember the direction of the town but his feet found him wandering away from his intentions in the mortal realm, instead heading towards the unknown in the dense forest. Spring was slowly giving way into summer, the petals of flowers past fallen to the ground from the earlier blossoming plants and had begun to decay, the sweet smell of their rot permeating the air as he trudged forward into the greenery.

At some point during his venture, he found himself lost in a grove of like trees, their twisting and spiraling branches reaching towards the heavens as if they thought they could touch it. The bright green of their leaves seeming to move without the aid of a breeze, it didn’t sit well with Yukhei. At this point it was his aim to travel to the small village, trying to remember the course his brother had set him on, and he could’ve sworn the town was just through the edge of this coppice. So, instead of lingering on his doubts he started straight, through one of the various rows of trees, his hand brushing over every odd trunk’s bark as he strolled. A streak of brown at the grove’s edge, it was some beast with carrion in it’s maw, fur matted as it stood and looked towards the god of Death.

Yukhei’s brow furrowed, he hadn’t seen any other life in the forest until now, he wondered if it was all hiding from him. But he hadn’t much time to ponder on the thought, as he took a cautious step towards the beast, a branch from a nearby tree had swooped down to try and batter his head. And it wasn’t until a few more branches followed suit that he knew he was in a particularly precarious situation, and the rise of voices from beings he couldn’t see had begun threatening him in a language unknown caused his anxiety to heighten. Something along the words of ‘plague’ and ‘expiry’ floating through the air as he tried to dodge the whomping branches of the trees. Had he known that it was a grove of dryads, perhaps he would’ve taken a different route than to be cut and bruised from the slicing leaves of a tree spirit.

A few colorful words leaving him as he made a hasty retreat back into the thick of the forest, wildly eyeing the trees around him to make sure they weren’t going to throttle him. Hand gingerly raised to his face, brushing over reddened and bloodied skin, his fingers saturated in gold when he removed them. Vision trained back to the grove, trees once again upright and the beast gone.

“Are you alright?”

A sharp intake of air as he nearly jumped out of his skin, not hearing the gentle footfalls that had approached from his side. Head turned to find you staring at him, a basket filled with various picked plants in hand as your eyes raked over his face. Yukhei doesn’t move to speak, allowing you to interject first.

“It looks like you got mauled by a tree,” a glint in your eye as he broke his gaze to stare off down the grove that had attacked him. “Did you get mauled by a tree? Or an alseid?” The lack of an answer confirmed your suspicion, “How’d you do that? They’re some of the nicest people.”

“I don’t want to get into it,” a glance of a finger over one of the various cuts on his cheek, the golden ichor staining it. Wincing as it stings when his fingers are removed. A look back to you, a recognition in his gaze the longer he observes at your concerned stare, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“I’m hurt, Yukhei. You were here only two months ago.” Basket swinging gently by your side, the waft of something spiced hitting his nostrils as a gentle breeze carried the scent.

The synapses in his brain firing off in rapid succession, a look of understanding awash on his face as his head nodded ever so slightly. “Oh, it’s you,” tone flat as he dropped his hand to his side, “what are you doing here?”

“I think I should be asking you the same,” you frown, watching him try and wipe his hands on his darkened pants.

A sigh from his parted lips, heart still under duress from the initial shock of your presence, “I’m visiting my brother.”

“Visiting your—Excuse me for prying but doesn’t he live, you know,” your index finger pointed down towards the earth, “not here?”

“You’re right, he has a beautiful villa at the entrance of the Underworld,” it had been woefully empty as of late, Dejun finding more and more time to escape to the world above rather than attending to his duties, below. Yet, since he was the god of restful slumber perhaps his job was never tied directly to the Underworld, not that Yukhei would ever admit to that. “But apparently, he’s found himself a home here too, I’m surprised you haven’t seen him. He’s here all the time.”

“I see,” you nodded your head in acute understanding, before raising and waving away his words. “Well, never mind that now,” the puzzled expression on his face prevalent as you spoke, “you’re injured.” When you took his hand into yours, he should’ve been shocked, the familiar warmth that had emanated from the last your hands had touched coursed through his fingertips once again. But he didn’t recoil away, his hand buzzed with the electricity of it, his gaze was too focused on the way that the sunlight filtered in through the trees and dappled its light onto your hair and face. On the small smile you gave him as you wordlessly pulled him behind you, leading him away into the depths of the forest once more.

Yukhei couldn’t help but draw parallels to his own home when the pair of you come upon yours. The blackened floors and closed-wall nature of his villa compared to the open space and marbled facades of your own a striking contrast in his eyes. Vines of green wrapped around several columns as a handful of vases dotted the space, filled with blooms he’d never seen before. His eyes traced a large gray vein settled deep into the marble floors as you ushered him further inside, the main room empty but the soft sounds of chatter and some sort of instrument echoing from some room in the depths of the building. He can’t remember the last time he’d had a guest in his home that wasn’t his brother or Kunhang and it seemed as if yours housed many.

“They’re practicing for one of Jung Jaehyun’s parties,” you noted as you watched his gaze trailing off towards the other rooms, “sorry for the noise.”

“It’s alright,” if anything he was trespassing in a home he should never have had the audacity to step into in the first place. “I’ll be sure to get out of your hands soon enough.”

You offered him nothing but a small smile as you finally led him into a room nestled away at the far end of one of the halls, billowing curtains fluttering from their once stagnant position as you guided him inside. “Take a seat over there,” he’d forgotten that he was holding your hand until the absence of it rendered him bemused. Yukhei looked to where you motioned for him to sit. It was a velvety green settee in the center of the space and when he looked back to ask you something, he found that you had scurried off to another room.

It was a few moments later when you returned to him, a rag in one hand and a bottle in the other as the basket you’d been holding was now absent; he shifted ever so uncomfortably as he knew what was to come. You sat beside him, dousing the rag until it was saturated enough that a few drops of the liquid fell from it as you moved to place it atop his face, “This might sting a little.” Perhaps you’d used too much force when patting at his injuries, you could see his teeth grit together and feel the flexing of his jaw under your touch.

“I- ow- I think I can do it myself,” his hand placed atop yours to halt the jabs at his face, your hand soft as he moved to take the cloth from your grasp.

Eyes widened at his initiation of contact, a small nod as you slip your hand away from him and watch as he gently dabbed at the golden ichor, the blood of the gods, that’d begun to creep its way down the sides of his face. An empathetic soul, you winced as he did, mirroring the slight twinges in his cheek as he wiped his face, only reapplying more of the mixture onto the rag before returning to cleanse himself.

“I think you,” a thin line of blood slowly inching down from a cut on his temple, you take the rag back before trying to gently staunch the flow as carefully as he’d done to himself, “missed a spot.” You hadn’t noticed his eyes staring into yours, too focused on the wound until you glance into his dark orbs. Once you turned your attention away, back to the injury and double checked it had stopped its flow, you lowered your hand and leaned away from the god of Death.

“Thank you,” words slow to exit him as you stood, moving to place the rag and bottle on a nearby table, only then to look over at a pitcher adjacent.

“Did you want water?” Questioned as you tilt your head downward to look at the contents of the carafe. “Or wine? Is it too early for wine?”

“That’s fine,” fingertips traced over the remnants of cuts, fading into obscurity on his visage as the seconds passed. Yukhei wasn’t sure what was in that mixture used to cure his maladies, but he’d have to take note of it when he left. When you hand him a rather full glass of the light red intoxicant he seemed to realize the oddity of the circumstance at hand, as do you when you return to your spot beside him on the couch, the hand not holding your own glass of wine idly drawing circles into the soft fabric near your knee.

“Why did you come back?” Your voice questioning, head tilting as if you had finally put some thought onto his presence. Yukhei looks confused himself at your question, pondering a million reasons in the span of a few seconds as his fingers danced lazily along the rim of the glass you’d given him before he took a drink. Eyes trailing to the golden light filtering in through the curtains that led to an outdoor courtyard, he let out a sigh when you spoke once more, “I don’t think it was just to visit your brother.” 

Glass removed, set atop his knee as he looked back to you. “I don’t know.” But he did know, he was just too much a coward to say it to a stranger. He wanted quiet, of nothing to think of and the solitude he could not find in the world below. Spirits constantly haunted him there as if he were a beacon of hope to a drowning sailor, grasping at his clothes as if he were the one that could restore them to life. Yet he wasn’t a beacon, he was the harbinger of their doom should they ever look past the handsome face and into his very soul to see the monster he truly was.

“Well I’m glad you’re here,” you offered a smile as you looked to the courtyard yourself, the sun slowly sinking from its midday placement, shadows beginning to shift.

A laugh, “Glad? Why would you be glad that the god of Death is bothering you again?”

“You’re not bothering me,” A wave of your hand to perish the thought from his mind. A sip from your glass, attention returned to your guest, “You’re company, and despite what it seems like— I don’t get visitors too often.”

Another laugh of incredulity, it reverberated warmly around your ears as it rung around the space, “I can’t say I believe that.”

“It’s true,” A shrug of your shoulders, “Everyone’s always coming and going, never staying for too long, but I’ve learned to live with it.”

There’s some type of understanding Yukhei reached at your statement, some connection made with you thought unimaginable between two gods so opposite to one another. It almost puts a callous smile to his lips, “I’m afraid I’ll have to adhere to that, as well. I was meant to see my brother an hour or so ago before I got… Caught up.”

“Of course,” a nod of your head as you stand, “I shouldn’t have kept you for so long.”

It wasn’t until he was halfway out your front door that you spoke to him once more, “I hope I can see you again, it does get boring here without someone to talk to.” Before he had a moment to digest your words you’d already retreated back into the depths of your home, leaving him with a confused and aloof smile playing on his lips.

**VI**

A thin sheen of sweat coated your brow, the fire burning in the hearth next to you roaring in the cooling air of autumn. An open window to your side bringing in the smell of the turning leaves and calmness of the air wafting in. Sounds of the street following in after the breeze, you couldn’t make out a decipherable voice among the slew of tones you could hear, but the distant crash of the shore was discernible above it all.

It had been an early morning for you, one of the nymphs that attended to you had notified you that one of your worshippers in the village was about to give birth to a child. And being the goddess of Life, it had caused you to perk up immediately, running around your estate to find some sort of gift for the newborn. As you weren’t a goddess of fertility or childbirth you brought along one of your attendants who was more versed in the area, dragging her from slumber, hastily getting her ready as you lamented that you should’ve been informed sooner. It wasn’t often that you had the time to celebrate a new life being brought into the world. You weren’t questioning it, but your godly duties hadn’t been needed too much as of late, you presumed it was due to winter beginning to creep slowly into your realm.

Pulled from your thoughts as the sound of a wooden door creaked open, the soft footsteps of the nymph you’d brought signaling for you to turn. “Well?” A smile on your face as you turned to the midwife, a hand gently swiping across your forehead to rid you of the perspiration that’d accumulated there.

“They’ve,” heavy breaths came from behind the midwife as she hesitated to finish her sentence, “passed.”

“They’ve—?” voice caught in your throat, as your head tilted and hand dropped to your side, a silence permeating through the three of you as the crackling of the hearth was the only source of noise.

“Died. They’ve died, both of them,” hallowed voice coming from the husband, shoulder leaned against the wooden frame of the doorway as you looked to the midwife to motion her back into the room.

“I’m so sorry,” an anxious step forwards, your hand gingerly rested on his arm as your heart dropped into your stomach.

Head buried into his hands at your touch, a few deep breaths holding back tears of anguish that made you feel suffocated yourself. “Can’t you bring her back?” Voice muffled, reddened eyes holding back a deluge of weeping moving to stare into yours as he asked. “She was one of your most devout followers, can’t you bring her back?”

The muscles in your arm felt taut, rigid as he spoke. Mortals never seemed to understand that gods and goddesses alike had their own boundaries not to cross as well. “If I could I would do it in an instant,” it pained you to no end to know that you couldn’t offer any form of solace to the man, distraught yourself, you could barely think straight, “but that isn’t within my power to do.” 

He fell back into his hands once your own was removed, shock and grief exuding from him and making your stomach turn. “I’ll leave you alone now, if there’s anything that you need, please come to me.” Another pat on his shoulder as you turn, your footsteps heavy as you walked to the front door. Your own breaths wracking your chest as you flung it open and stepped into the cold. The skies gray overhead as you take the few steps down onto the street, the sounds of the town bustling around as if nothing had happened. But this was life, constantly moving and changing despite tragedies that occur in other’s lives, you never had quite gotten used to that.

“Are you always in this town?” The question falling on almost deaf ears, the blood rushing to yours had almost blocked out the voice that had asked.

A familiar face, curious eyes, and clothes of black, “Yukhei—What are you doing here?” It wasn’t that he was unwelcome, but his presence in itself at the moment was off-putting with the notion of what had just occurred.

“I was just coming from my brother’s, I felt that a few people had passed and thought I’d see their souls off.” Something likened to a grimace passed along his face for a shadowed second, “I hate it when kids die.”

“As do I,” a frown of your own as you looked back to the small house, the smell of smoke lingering on your clothes, catching in the wind and bringing the scent to your nose as you turned.

“What were you doing there?” Eyes that followed yours, looking to the coarse wooden door, unable to see or hear the grief behind it.

“She was one of my followers, I thought I’d bless the child but—” Words were hard to come by, getting caught in your throat as you tried to explain yourself.

“You don’t need to say any more, I understand.” Seeing the distraught on your brow had sent a pang spiraling into his heart. He’d known death was a strife among the living, that’s why he often more than not avoided such encounters, but this particular one had called to him. “I should probably head inside,” he muttered as you nodded your head, stepping aside to allow him access into the home.

The ocean was choppy, white at the crest of its waves as they battered against the rocks some ways down the shoreline. Air wrought with salty mist that caught itself in your hair and clung to you as if it sought to soak into your soul. You’re not sure why your feet had carried you here, but they had and there wasn’t anyone else around to see you think, to invade on your private sorrow.

Death was natural, death was ever-present in the mortal realm, but its constant manifestation never made the impact of it less. With the hem of your skirts soaked with the brackish water of the coast as it dragged itself onto the shore, you breathed in the saltiness of the air and let it invade your lungs for a moment.

“She said I’d find you here.” The crunch of sand underfoot, Yukhei’s voice rung out quietly as he approached.

“She? Oh,” A turning of your head before the notion hit you, “I thought you’d have gone back home by now?”

“I was actually wondering if you’d like to come with me, to see them off?” A motion of his hand backwards to an empty shoreline, you had only been left to assume that the spirits were there in some form or fashion. It brought the taste of upset to your lips. “I let them linger for a while longer but it’s time that I take them away.”

Your feet in the water, deep breaths, the cawing of gulls overhead, “Alright.”

The trek to the mouth of the cave Yukhei had come to know quite well in the past few months was relatively short, through the thicket of trees and an excursion around the grove of nymphs that had wronged him the last you two had seen each other before you reach the rocky crag. After you’d shot him a look of confusion, he motioned you into the cave as he entered, the absence of light almost immediate as you followed after him. “I’ve met all of these faces when they passed, I’ll meet every mortal, nymph, dryad, centaur, fairy, goblin whatever when they die,” hand flexing as he led you down the dark caverns of the cave, more and more spectral apparitions becoming visible the longer the pair of you twisted around the rocky path.

“And I saw all of them when they were born.” Not literally, of course, but just as he wasn’t present physically for every passing, you were both there in relative spirit. “It’s just… strange to see them again.” Faces void of any recognition, it was if they were just the hallowed animus of what they’d once been. “I never realized the entrance to the Underworld was so close to home.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, it moves constantly, sometimes with the aid of an Underworld god.”

“Just like it does to—?” An end to your sentence before you’d finished it, not needing any further explanation.

“I can only assume it’s the same,” shoulders shrugged as the cave gave way to an expanse of space at its opening. To call it otherworldly would be an understatement. Perhaps you’d expected it to be some sort of tortured realm, the cries of the damned ringing around brimstone and fire as the air was laden with some sort of sick sense of dread. Maybe obsidian spires that led into a black abyss of nothingness, something that’d strike dread into anyone that beheld it. But it wasn’t, instead it was rather serene. Dark colors were overtly present around the landscape and the handful of Greco-Romanesqe buildings around the space, but it was neat, orderly, almost ethereal in the light of a moon that shouldn’t be present. “That’s the Styx over there,” Yukhei’s gesture pulled you from your trance as he motioned towards a body of water on the horizon, “the closer river’s Acheron.” The milky white waters of the channel some ways away looking even more ghostly as the two of you had begun to edge closer to its banks.

“Is the line of the dead typically this long?” Wrought iron gates standing at the threshold of the Underworld, a seemingly endless throng of spirits standing before them, you’d heard of the gates but had always assumed them to be metaphorical rather than anything else. The line coiled around the path like a serpent without a trail, falling over itself more and more haphazardly until it just amassed into an ocean of spirits not quite clambering at the gates.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Yukhei sounded disappointed as you saw him look through the span of spirits as the two of you made your way through the crowds, they stayed away from Yukhei as if he had an aura of disease that trailed after him like a hound looking for scraps. There was a way in which the light of the Underworld affected him; you had noticed it as soon as you’d stepped through the entrance. His already pale skin becoming pallid, almost waxen looking as if he were actually a corpse animated rather than a living being.

“Do you think we could cross with them?” You questioned as you made your way through the gates and to the quay where ferryman was docked.

“I think crossing might be too much of a risk for you, Overworld gods don’t tend to fair well down here. Especially the further they venture in,” that and he’d seen some sort of hellhound stalking the plains that morning and hadn’t wanted to subject you to that. A nod of your head as the two of you stand on the dock and watch the ferry push off from port. “I’m sorry about what happened to your friend.”

A glance down to your hands saw that your own complexion had begun to become a lighter pallor as well, you didn’t feel any different, but it still shocked you, nonetheless. “You don’t need to apologize; it wasn’t your fault.” Yukhei had turned away from you, his footsteps creaking atop the wooden pier as he made his descent off of it. You stood, watching the ferry cross for a while longer before following after him, finding it hard to tear your gaze away from the scene. “You know, for all of the life and death overlap the world has seen, I’m surprised I never met you sooner.”

“I tend to stay away from going up too often, it pisses off some of the older gods and I’d rather not have Kun on my ass for another century.” He mused as you caught up to him, your footfalls trying to synchronize with his.

“Another?” A glance to him as your interest was piqued, “I feel like there’s a story there.”

“It’s a long and boring one, I’ll tell you about it when I’m ready to have him storm down here again.” A laugh, resounding across the water’s surface as he diverted his course away from the river’s edge and towards one of the darkened villas several meters away.

Yukhei doesn’t walk with trepidation through the emptied halls of his home, he knows his own ghosts by now. The dark marble of his floors clicking under both of your steps, the walls high, rooms mostly empty and the prick of eyes watching from somewhere causing the hairs to raise on the back of your neck like a startled cat. “I’m sorry for the mess,” He finally uttered as the two of you made way into what seemed to be a drawing room; splayed out papers covering almost every tabletop, leather bound books stacked precariously on the edges as the flicker of the candles only added to the ambiance of it all, “I wasn’t expecting on having a visitor today.”

“It’s alright,” your finger traced one of the spines of one of the tomes, the indentations from the worn gold-gilded title bumpy under your touch, the leather soft.

Scrimshaw trinkets adorning a few of his shelves, perhaps the only source of something that had previously been living confined in the space. “I can’t say I expected your home to look like this.” He was leaning against a small table the next time you looked over to him, a faraway expression on his face as if he were somewhere else.

It took a repetition of your question to pull him from his thoughts for him to respond. “Sorry,” soft smile adorning him as he apologized, “I’m sorry if it’s too dreary.” 

“Yukhei, you don’t have to keep apologizing so much,” even if it was void of the colors that embellished your own abode, there was an acute homeliness about it, even if it seemed sorrowfully empty and barren of life. “You know, Life and Death aren’t enemies. At least I don’t think we are, are we?”

“Well I don’t think I’ve done anything to wrong you,” a nod of your head to affirm his statement, “and you haven’t done anything to wrong me. I think that makes us amicable at the very least.”

“Good.” A small smile, “I should quite like to be friends.”

“Wouldn’t that tarnish your name?”

“Do you think I’m that self-absorbed to care about that?” You let out a small laugh as you sit on one of the lounging couches. “Ten might be, but I’m not.”

“You’re friends with Ten?” Brow raised as he moved to take a seat on the arm of the opposite end of the sofa, “Do you think you could ask him something for me?” Furious whispers from the enclaves of his mind, pushing him to press and fish for answers when he wasn’t fully sure he wanted them in the first place.

“If I can ever pull him from his artist’s grasp, I can try,” Another small laugh as you watched the flicker of a nearby flame for a moment longer before turning to Yukhei, “Love issues?”

“Something like that.” Yukhei’s proclivity for questioning was never the type to be but so straightforward, but ever since the day he met you a question, or perhaps more than just one, had plagued his mind.

“I see,” mulling the answer over as you shifted to face him fully, “But forget that now, you never did give me a response: do you want to be friends?”

“You know, I’ve never had a friend that wasn’t one of my siblings or Kunhang,” head nodded in thought, “and Dejun’s been telling me to branch out a little more so I don’t see why not.”

**V**

The winter winds had blown in from the coast, cold, arctic air that sought to dredge any warmth out from its home and burdened the land with its blustery gales. “Watch this,” you’d been looking down from the bluff that you sat upon, your heels gently tapping the rocky side, when the voice beside you pulled you from your thoughts.

“Ten, it’s cold,” lips chapped, and nose reddened by the unwavering winds atop the cliff, the deity’s sights not paying you any mind as he watched two figures stroll along the beach at the base of the bluffs. “Can’t you do this when it’s warmer out?” The salted spray of the ocean below reaching you, misting over the hilltops and disturbing any peace you might’ve tried to find there.

“Not at all,” an eye closed, sights locked as you hear him shift as he reached for an arrow from his quiver, subsequently notching it and aiming it at one of the figures. “They’ve been on and off for months and I really don’t think they’re going to get together naturally.”

“Forever the intermediary,” the sharp whistle of an arrow flying through the wind. The first time Ten had shown you his method of matchmaking had shocked you, but when the arrow, tipped with some unknown substance, pierced the side of whomever his subject was and disappeared almost immediately with no visible sign of bodily harm, you realized that maybe it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed at first.

“How’s that boy of yours doing?” Ten asked as he slung his bow over his shoulder. He hadn’t taken your newfound friendship with the god of Death lightly, chiding and saying that he had warned you previously that they weren’t of any merit. “Did he reap any souls today?”

“He’s not like that,” You frowned, beginning to walk away from the edge of the cliff and back to more solid footing. Yukhei was gentler than you’d thought on your first meeting with him, finding joy in some of the most simple, menial tasks that you did. He’d enjoyed the walks the two of you had undertaken when the leaves had turned in autumn, the first snowfall of the season and the warmth of a hearth after he’d trudged his way through the winds to your home. You hadn’t returned to the Underworld since your first visit, Yukhei was reluctant to take you back since he’d seen how sickly you’d looked after reemerging. “There’s more to him than just death, Ten.”

“You don’t need to defend him just because you’re smitten with him.” He scoffed as he lengthened his strides to match yours, the incredulous smile peeking into your vision as he saddles up next to you, looping his arm under your as you walk.

“I am not smitten with him,” a gentle nudge to his shoulder as you defended yourself.

“I’m the god of Love, you know. I think I can tell when someone’s—” his vision once trained on you shifted to look down the path you tread, another scoff escaped him before he muttered, “Speak of the devil.”

Your gaze falls onto the god of Death approaching from the trail you walked, at first a look of bewilderment crossing your face, and then a smile. “I didn’t mean to intrude—” Yukhei explained as he neared, glancing from you to Ten to your linked arms and then back to you, “I was talking with one of the nymphs at your home and they said I’d find you here. I didn’t realize that you had company—”

“Oh no, you weren’t interrupting anything,” the warmth from you was the phenomena that lulled him closer, despite a voice in the back of his mind telling him to leave. Eyes flickering to the figure that stood beside you, “Ten was just leaving, weren’t you?”

“Was I?” Arm releasing its grasp on yours as he shot you a glare before looking towards Yukhei. “Oh, I was.”

“It’s been a while,” Yukhei’s gaze lingered on the space Ten once took up before looking to the god that was approaching him.

“Some might say not long enough,” the words encased in a venom as he brushed past Yukhei, the vitriol of it had you starting out in protest but before any words were uttered Ten sent himself off with a wave and an “I’ll see you in a few days.”

It wasn’t until his visage had disappeared into the denseness of the forest that you spoke again, “I’m sorry about him, he can get a little—”

“Oh, I’m aware, he’s actually caused quite a few problems in the Underworld over the past few centuries.”

“Has he?” The extent of his interferences unknown because both parties hadn’t ever mentioned it before, maybe you’d have to question Ten on it the next time you saw him. “But beside that, why are you here?”

“I, uh—” you could’ve sworn you saw a light pink flush cross his cheeks as he chose his next words, “I wanted to see you.”

“Me?” Lower lip bitten to save your smile from growing any larger, “I’m flattered but are you sure you’re not here to see your brother again?”

“Dejun? Ah— no, he’s in the Underworld, Chenle and him got into a fight and it’s an entire mess right now.”

“Shouldn’t you be helping out with that then?” You questioned, walking over to the god and looping your arm under his as you began to walk down the path. It was only getting colder outside and, while you enjoyed the winter scapes, you couldn’t handle it for too long.

“There is absolutely no way that I’m getting in between the gods of Sleep and Nightmares, I wouldn’t have a restful night for at least a couple decades if I did,” a shake of his head as he began to walk along with you, the sun reflecting off of the white of the snow in the branches of nearby trees and atop the ground causing him to wince at the brightness. A streak of red flying across his vision, landing perched atop one of the snow laden branches, a silent gasp as he’d never seen the color naturally occurring in the wilds of winter before, “Oh wow, it’s gorgeous.” Yukhei’s voice cause for your head to turn, following his hand to the finger that was pointing to a nearby tree.

His arm gone from yours, his feet trudging through the snow to get a closer glimpse of the cardinal that had its head cocked at the god of Death. It flutters off after a moment of their staring contest, Yukhei watching it fly away and back to its home in another tree some ways away. As Yukhei stood, cheeks reddened with cold, you couldn’t help but notice that he looked more so at peace under the barren tree, snow silently falling through its branches, than he did in the Underworld. The last time you visited his realm, he had seemed to blend into the mist, your hand had to hold onto his shirt as he led you around the depths of hell so you wouldn’t lose yourself. But here he wasn’t a figure that stood out or blended in, it was as if he stood in his own ethereal space as the cold air wrapped around the two of you. The din of a far-off bell ringing quietly through the winter winds, before you speak up, “Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m not too bothered by it,” He breathed out puffs of white as he made his way back to the path and you, “I think I prefer it over the warmth, actually.”

“Really?” You mused as the pair of you continued to walk some more, “Actually there was something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Almost as soon as the two of you had begun to walk you stopped to turn to him.

“Yes?” Question voiced as stably as he could, trying to deny the fluttering of his heart at your question.

“There’s a party— It’s several weeks out but I was wondering if you’d like to go?” Thankful for the flush of red on your cheeks from the cold as it could suppress the one of acute embarrassment.

“Together?” He asked, head tilted to the side as if you were only asking him to go in your stead instead of as a pair.

“Well, yes, together.” A nervous laugh, your hands clenched together as you cringed at yourself. “If you don’t have the time it’s perfectly okay I just thought that it’d be nice to go, you know, together.”

“I’d like that.” Yukhei blurted out as soon as he saw how uncomfortable you were feeling , “Just— I guess get Yangyang to send over the details when it gets closer to the date, okay? I’m not too sure that I’ll have much free time in the coming weeks.”

“Of course,” A smile as you nodded, turning back to the path and nudging him gently in the ribs, “Now can we please go inside? I think I’m going to turn into a godly icicle if we stay out here for much longer.”

**VI**

Jung Jaehyun had one of the most humbled and convivial personalities that Yukhei had ever laid eyes upon. Laughing and drinking at the back of his party with a now emptied wine glass in hand as he made small chat with his compatriot about some happenings that had gone on earlier in the night. Yukhei hadn’t meant to start a conversation with the god, but he’d bumped into the host when he’d arrived and now found himself about two wine glasses in and a flush of pink on his cheeks to match the red hues of Jaehyun’s ears.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you since one of Kun’s galas decades ago,” Yukhei hadn’t seen Jaehyun turn away to refill his glass, but had found it full again after the god of Death had looked away for only a second. “How’s the Underworld?”

“It hasn’t changed much,” a small smile in return, “I’d offer to let you visit but it’s not very lively if you know what I mean.”

“Was that a joke?” Jaehyun laughed, jovial and red-tipped ears, Yukhei doubts the god had seen a day of worry in his life. “Is anyone else from the Underworld here tonight? I heard Renjun’s been back for a while now?”

“I’m actually not sure,” The god of Death’s head turned to scan the crowds, “We’re not much of the partying type.” As he turned back to look at his host, Yukhei spotted you weaving through the crowds and tried to motion you over with a wave. It took a moment for you to realize it, but happily strolled over seconds later.

“I thought we were going to meet by the entrance. Ten told me he saw you inside,” a small pout on your lips as you looked to Jaehyun, “I trust my musicians are doing their job well?”

“They’re more than exceptional, thank you for letting me use them again.” He waved off the answer by replacing it with a quizzical expression, “I didn’t realize you two knew each other?” His eyes glanced down to your arms interlocked before returning to meet your gaze, “It must’ve been a recent meeting.”

“Almost a year ago now, I think?” You spoke up before Yukhei had the chance to, “He came to one of my festivals and I haven’t been able to get rid of him since,” a gentle squeeze to his arm to let him know you were kidding.

“Are you sure it’s not the other way around?” A laugh, “I can’t say I’ve ever seen Yukhei be the clinging type.” Jaehyun’s hand raised to wave off the conversation, “But I’ll let you go now, I think I see Donghyuck trying to get Minhyung drunk again and you know what happened the last time—”

“By all means,” you inched yourself closer to Yukhei so Jaehyun could slip past.

“What happened the last time?” Yukhei’s eyes trained on the younger two in the corner of the ballroom, Minhyung looking doubled over while Donghyuck had said something funny enough to make himself laugh.

“I’ll tell you only if you tell me why Kun was pissed off at you,” You smirked as he looked back to you.

“I can’t imagine that my story’s better than that one,” he mused, sipping from his glass.

“That’s a shame,” You sighed, unlinking your arm from Yukhei, and walking a few feet away to grab your own glass of wine from a nearby table. “Do you want to head outside? It’s a little loud in here.”

“Sure,” he smiled and offered out his arm to you once again.

The pergola overhead tangled with vines shielding you from the moon’s beams raining in from the heavens as the pair of you made your way outside. “I’m glad you could make it,” you smiled as the pair of you settled along the balcony that let outward into an expanse of forest below.

The brightness of your eyes only spurning the stars mixed into the filament of the heart, “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. And it would’ve been horribly rude to just not show up.”

“Thanks for not making me out to be the fool,” you laughed, a realization dawning on you. “Here,” you reached for his glass, dumping the contents of both his and yours before rummaging around the small bag you’d brought with you.

“You know I  _ was  _ going to finish that,” Yukhei protested, mourning the loss of his wine.

“But what if I have something better?” You questioned, Yukhei didn’t see you pour whatever it was into the glasses, only taking note of the green hue, “To Life,” you toasted, “and Death,” a giddy aura exuding from you as your hand extended the small glass of green liquid out to him. “Drink, I promise it won’t kill you.”

“There’s not much that can,” A grin replaced the puzzled expression that had overcome him as he had entered the venue. Glass brought to his mouth, the lyres and other cacophony of instruments seeming to slow as the alcohol fell past his lips. Elderflower and anise— the brew of absinthe runs through him and strangles any hesitance he may have had from the night and illuminates a glow that had been hidden away in his chest for an eternity or two. Sky lit in verdant hues for a moment, he wondered if this would be the closest to heaven he’d ever be, a warmth prevailing and the lasting etch of a smile on his cheeks as he sits and talks with another immortal who wasn’t akin to his darkened ways. Glass removed from his lips, the stem fragile under his tightening grasp, Yukhei still found himself smiling. He isn’t sure he’d held one for this long since he was a child, there wasn’t much in the Underworld that would bring more than a mournful glower to his visage.

You sipped at your own glass of absinthe, the glow of the brew running verily through your fingertips already. “I had Yangyang steal me some from that god of Mischief’s cellar,” a hand moved to your mouth, “but you’re friends with him, aren’t you? Don’t tell him, I’ll pay him back at some point.”

“My lips are sealed,” the now empty glass set down atop the marble railing, his eyes trailed up to make out constellations in the nighttime sky.

“I thought I heard you,” a voice calling out, pulling Yukhei out from his thoughts. The two of you turned, seeing Dejun and another figure, whose Dejun’s arms were wrapped around, making their way towards you. “You’ve never been one for parties, I thought I was hearing things.”

“Neither have you,” the god of Death mused, looking to Dejun and then to you, trying to forget the mortal who his brother was draped over. “This is Dejun, my brother, Dejun this is—”

Seeing the grimace that had begun to form on your partner’s lips, you stepped forward, introducing yourself to the newcomers so that Yukhei could momentarily compose himself as he slipped a step or two backwards. “It’s nice to meet the two of you, Yukhei and I were just about to go on a walk, would you care to join us?”

“Maybe in a little while, I promised her that I’d go dancing, even if I’ve got two left feet,” Dejun smiled as he removed his arms from around the girl, his hand finding hers almost seconds later. His eyes flickered to his brother’s, watching the shadows shift uneasily across his face for a moment before nodding his head to you and whisking his accompaniment off back into the main hall.

“They seemed nice enough,” A bemused smile on your lips as you turned to your increasingly dower friend.

“Nice enough for a fool in love,” his frown felt through the night air, you turned to him.

“Why do you say that?”

“She’s all he ever speaks about, thinks about, and when he does, dreams about.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“It is when it isn’t lasting,” A shake of his head as he sighed. “She’s a mortal and knows that he can’t love her forever, he’ll only be heartbroken when she goes off and dies someday.”

“Mortal or not, shouldn’t you be glad your brother has found some sort of happiness? I know I was when my siblings did.”

“Your siblings wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout of being the god of Death and being the cause for tragedy when the inevitable happens.”

Your head shook at him, a sigh leaving you as you brought your glass to your lips and downed the rest of the liquid within it. Hand reaching to Yukhei’s, urging it up to his own mouth, “Drink, and then let’s go for a walk.”

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” You noted as you looked out to the glimmer of moonlight atop the gentle ministrations of the water receding from the shore’s edge. The lake lay on the outskirt of Jaehyun’s property, a seemingly endless forest surrounding the area as the two of you stopped along the path.

The calmness of the night sky moves in like a wandering beast, not fraught with fear at the new and unexpected, rather intrigued with the insatiable desire to become something it never had before. It wraps around the two of you, a shiver of cold air causing gooseflesh to bloom along your arms and run down your back, a warmth running through Yukhei unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. Dancing light of the moon and the twinkling of the stars and the glow of the fires aligning the walkway. If he had the means or capability to, he’d like to capture one of those stars, keep it on his bedside table to have it remind him of you and the comfort of this world that was so unlike his. It does not occur to him that his gaze had turned to linger on you, on the dim light reflected in your eyes or the rosiness of your cheeks as his heart began to swell within his chest. Nothing in his life had prepared him for such a feeling, past the placidness of the platonic nature of your newly found friendship and into something that scared even him.

Yukhei hadn’t heard the question, your attention still rapt upon the glittering light, nor had he heard it the second time you asked, but he had heard it the third. You’d turned to look at him, eyes widened and head piqued in innate curiosity that only set his heart even more aflutter, “It is but it’s not as beautiful as you,”

Intoxicated on life and the vibrancy of it all, intoxicated on the woes forgotten in the midnight sky, intoxicated on you in the orange glow of the firelight. Your lips of honeyed midsummer’s fleeting rays against the flushed pink of his cheek, soft breath escaping you when his hand finds anchor under your chin and brings your lips to his. His kiss caustic against yours, acidity burning your very essence. It stings and scorches against your neck as he trailed his lips lower, muttering unintelligible words that lay hot on your skin. For a moment you think to indulge him, a handsome face with a growingly unobscured personality. But it wasn’t right, this wasn’t for you or him.

A hand to gently nudge him away, “You’re drunk.” Yet he’s drawn to you like a moth to a flame, he wondered if you had that same pull to him. “Confess to me when you’re sober and maybe then I’ll believe you.”

“Do you promise?” The ghost of his breath fanned out over your face as he pulled away.

Instead of answering with a resolute ‘yes’ you poised a question of your own, “Do you dream, Yukhei?”

“Sometimes,” the question strange on his tongue, he leaned away from you as if the nature of it brought him, momentarily, out of his drunkenness.

“What do you dream of?”

He didn’t let the accursed three letters of y, o and u fall past his lips, instead he thought to the sunlit strolls, blooming fields that often drifted through his dreams. But then he was reminded of the bitter loneliness that carved out the hollows of his insides what felt like every other night, to corroborate with his self doubt and woeful nature to amplify his fears. He’s tried to have Dejun tame his inner monsters, but rarely does one god’s power work on another deity. “There's not much to say about my dreams really, what do you dream about?”

“Nothing,” it’s something of a sad forlornness that flickers in the light of the braziers, “I can’t remember the last dream I had.” When you noticed the confusion set onto his face, you tried to brush it away with a smile. “Ah, I thought this would be an interesting conversation,” your hand slipped atop his, grabbing it and pulling him back towards the glow of the party lights some ways away, “let’s dance, surely that’ll be much more entertaining.”

“I don’t dance that well,” Yukhei protested as he looked to the mass of gods, nymphs and other assorted creatures dancing atop the makeshift floor on Jaehyun’s lawn.

“I’d like to think I’m a pretty good teacher,” you laughed gently, urging him forward.

Bleariness of sleep, a soft warmth on his skin as the first rays of the morning’s light began to peak through the density of the forest. Yukhei’s head is pounding, a wrath upon his thoughts as his feet ache with the dances performed a lifetime ago. Throat parched as if it were the arid cracks that laced the bed of an empty river. It takes too much effort to sit up, finding his shirt torn, riddled with grass stains and dirt, the darkened patches adorning the knees of his pants signaling to him a night of forgotten acts. But that’s not what plays on his mind, it’s of the damned lack of hydration riddling him with the worst headache of his life. He stands, aided with the stability of a nearby tree, the bark rough under his fingertips.

He recalled the water he'd seen the night prior, albeit the memory was wrought with the dizziness of inebriation that still coursed through his veins. The water lay not too far from where he awoke, shuffling to its edge to find reprieve in the blueness of it all. And then he thought of you, your absence from his side. Footsteps staggered as he looked through the trees for you, finding nothing but the dense green of it all. A hand dipped into the coolness of the water, cupping and brought to his lips in the attempt to quell his seemingly insatiable thirst. Several more handfuls before he adds his other hand to splash the water over his face. Like a deserted man finding an oasis he drank until he thought himself sick, but he felt less drunk, less tired as he sat by the lake.

When you don't come looking for him, he goes looking for you. Past partygoers still dancing to music no longer being played, to those drunk and tired strewn out on the lawn as he'd been, and to the carefully napping inside of one of Jaehyun's apartments.

You called out to him as he passed by one of the rooms, your voice tired and quiet as if not to rouse others in nearby rooms. And so he wandered in, his footsteps quiet atop the marbled tile as he made his way over to the bedside, "I thought I'd lost you." He wondered if he sounded as anxious as he thought himself to be.

“I slept in one of the villa’s rooms but I don’t know why I’m so tired,” a stifle of a yawn onto the back of your hand, eyes brimming with the tears of a slumber unwanted. “Are you tired? I can’t imagine sleeping on the ground was comfortable.” A hand raised to wrap around his wrist and pull him down onto the blankets next to you. “I kept asking if you wanted to join me but you insisted on sleeping outside.”

There was a loud thrumming around his ribcage as he lay next to you, a feeling foreign to him, so much so his cheeks redden at the thought of it.

Your fingers traced the frayed fabric of his shirt, your brow furrowed at the sight of it. “Let me mend that for you when we get back home,” perhaps you'd pushed him too far in trying to open himself up last night, you'd gotten too drunk yourself to remember all of the events that had occurred but you certainly don't remember his shirt being this shredded the last you saw it.

Yukhei was too focused on how you'd said the word 'home' without a denotative 'my' in front of it. Were you stating to think him a resident because of the time he spent there? It was perhaps too presumptive, but it made him flush even that much more.

It happened all too fast; his hand that had reached out to pull away from the hem of his shirt, your eyes locking for a brief moment, you weren’t sure which of the two of you made the first move. Yukhei’s lips clashing against yours, a devilish fire burning inside of you as your hands moved to find placement on the sides of his face while his found root on the sides of your waist.

A smirk danced atop his lips as you parted for air, the coolness of the morning sinking into your skin, a moment of realization dawning upon you, “Yukhei, we shouldn’t be doing this,” a search for a confirmation of your sin in his eyes, you found none but a hunger that yours surely mirrored. Hands removed from his face, sliding down to his shoulders as you look to him, the fire within you edging as a forest blaze does.

“Do you want me to stop?” His voice whispered into the sanctity of your room, dissipating into nothing but ephemeral, unspoken promises. It was difficult to deny him, difficult to push him away when he pressed his face into the crook of your neck and began to place what felt like ghosts of kisses onto your skin, a hand leaving your side to draw faint circles on your thigh.

When you’d subconsciously craned your neck to allow him more access to your skin, you knew that it would be impossible to subdue the feelings you’d begun to harbor towards him. “No,” the soft sigh that left you reminding him of a breeze drifting over rolling, open hilltops.

Your loose, unfitted stola pulled over your head as you both moved to sit up atop the plush duvet, his hands that had been lost only then finding their place once more on your thin chemise, gently squeezing your hip as if he were making sure this wasn’t a dream. “Will you accept my confession now?”

"I—" you'd begun before a cough from the doorway caused both you and Yukhei to turn at a speed too fast for the normal eye to comprehend.

“I suppose it’s my turn to interrupt,” A voice mused, his shoulder leaning against the doorway as his eyes raked over the scene in front of him. The two of you turned, a gripping sense of fear that momentarily sat in your stomach.

“Ten!” Voice hoarse, caught in your throat as you hadn’t been expecting him. “What are you doing here?”

“You promised me you’d go pomegranate picking with me today, and we’ve got to go all the way to Jungwoo’s home for that.” The god sighed, “But I see you’re a little preoccupied so maybe we could postpone,”

“Was that today?” Brain racked for the date, you could’ve sworn it had been another day.

“If you already had plans perhaps, I should leave,” The weight on the bed shifted as Yukhei moved to stand, he looked to Ten before speaking once more, “Could you give us a moment, so I can say goodbye.”

“As you wish,” the god of Love scoffed before pushing himself from the doorway with his shoulder and striding off somewhere in the villa.

“If I had remembered I wouldn’t have let us stay out so late last night,” you frowned as you stood, moving to grab your discarded clothes. “I’m sorry,”

“There’s no need to apologize,” Yukhei offered you a sympathetic smile, “If you had obligations there’s no need to break them because of me. Although, can I ask something before I leave?”

“Of course,” you nodded, head tilted as you tugged the stola over your head, not caring all too much at how haphazardly put together you probably looked.

“Can I kiss you?”

“I don’t think you need to ask anymore,” maybe you’d have been embarrassed at how quickly you’d responded had Yukhei not stepped forward and placed a gentle, lasting kiss on your lips before he backed away. You felt warm, buzzing with an energy and the phantoms of his touches still calling out to you where they’d once lain. “I’ll see you soon?”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Yukhei walked home realizing that he had never been truly in love before. His life prior to this had only sought out brotherly affection and camaraderie with the occasional god that hadn’t detested his very presence, and it wasn’t as if he had time to venture out and look for it. Not that he had truly wanted to in the first place. But his mentality had begun to change, mold its shape into something more tangible, the more time he spent around you. Some crack in the dismality of his being had begun to let a light in and warm a heart he never knew could be so tender. For some reason, a smile had sunk itself onto his lips, he found it present even when he wasn’t aware. If this warmness were the answer to the coldness he’d felt for longer than he could remember, he thought to indulge in its heat for a while longer, forever if he could.

**VII**

“Do you remember when we were younger, and you almost pushed me into the Styx?” The aforementioned river on Yukhei’s right as he strolled along its banks with Dejun. It had been a while since the two of them had spoken one on one, with either Dejun’s lover, you or Kunhang there to dispel the tensions between the two of them. But Yukhei had pulled Dejun away from the group to speak to him, but it seemed as if his brother also had something on his mind. The notion hadn’t sat well with Yukhei, now he was just waiting for him to say anything else instead of pandering to their youth.

“I wouldn’t have let you fall in.” Yukhei muttered as his eyes looked to the matte looking water, no sheen of wetness made it all the more off-putting.

“It was still scary,” A laugh. It wouldn’t have harmed Dejun but so much, perhaps a more scarring incident than anything, but the two had been playing tag and they would quarrel incessantly over who was to be ‘it’ first. It typically led to one of the higher powers of the Underworld deciding who it was, leading to more quarreling before the game was actually started. “We can laugh at it now though, can’t we?”

“Of course,” a return of a flicker of a smile as Yukhei flexes his hand. It had been him that pushed, an enraged jealousy that he’d liked to think of left behind in his youth, yet it plagued him now. But it had also been him that pulled Dejun back to shore in a realization and a wrath of guilt. Yukhei isn’t sure that he knew what he wanted to say to his brother, or what his brother was to say to him. Change was never something he found himself accustomed to, sparing only the most fleeting of moments to indulge in a difference, only finding himself falling into an easy routine.

“You’ve seemed… happier lately. Has something happened?” Dejun questioned, knowing his brother’s tendencies better than anyone else, it was obvious some sort of change had occurred within him.

“I made a friend,” flush hidden by the shadows of the realm, he felt like a lovelorn teenager unable to describe to the fullest extent of what he was beginning to feel towards you. “Maybe that’s it.”

“Was it that goddess from the party the other night? She seemed quite fond of you,”

“You think so?” Yukhei didn’t directly ask Dejun, more so placed the question into the universe, the lingering hum of stolen kisses still fluttering atop his lips from times since some sort of solidification of a relationship had blossomed between him and you.

“Why did you want to talk to me?” Dejun questioned, not trying to pry any more information about you from his brother, he felt there were larger hands at play. There always were.

“Do I need a reason?” Yukhei hashed, piquing an eyebrow at his brother. Of course, there was.

“No,” The god of Sleep shook his head wearily, a sense of where this conversation was going to go beginning to creep upon him, “it’s just very uncharacteristic of you.”

A flash of a smile before Yukhei turned to his brother, “We haven’t spoken one-on-one for what seems like years. I’m just curious on how you’ve been doing.”

“This is about her,” a lilt tinged in his voice as his head nodded off to his own home across the Styx, “isn’t it?”

“Of course, it is,” any façade of normalcy dropped from his voice. “You’ve brought a mortal to the Underworld, what kind of katabasis are you trying to pull? You’re not some sort of Orpheus and Eurydice variant.”

A sigh, hand run through the darkened strands of his hair, “She won’t be here forever, she doesn’t  _ want  _ to be.”

“So, you’re taking her back then?” He glanced to the villa across the water, a figure standing in the doorway, presumably watching the pair speak.

“Once everything’s calmed down. They were trying to sell her into a marriage she didn’t want, I couldn’t just stand by and let that happen.” Dejun defended his actions with arms crossed, defensive stance and a furrowed brow.

“Right, of course,” Yukhei’s answer hadn’t been one Dejun was expecting. But to Yukhei, what his brother had said was a victory, the parasitic being that was his brother’s lover was to be expunged at some point soon, not trying to worm her way into immortality just to feed off of the power of Sleep itself. “If there’s anything you need to prepare to take her up, just let me know.”

"You're taking this better than I thought," Dejun's confused inflection cause enough for Yukhei to try and subdue a somewhat gleeful smile that had begun to claw its way onto his lips. "Thank you, Xuxi."

**VIII**

The cloud that hung over Yukhei should've been visible, maybe it would be if he willed it into a physical existence. It loomed and anchored to his heart with a gray dismay as he strode through the empty halls of his home, towards his study where he knew he could find solace in a friend.

The doors opened with a creaking melancholy, reverberated around the space for a moment before dissipating into nothing, Yukhei’s eyes quickly settled into the figure sitting at the nearby table. “I already know what you’re going to say,” pages of a book flipped almost melancholily as Kunhang’s eyes scanned the page, not even bothering to read any of the contents. He would just rather skim the lines of some ancient play than meet the eyes of Death itself at this very moment. “Dejun’s happy, why can’t you let him stay that way? He might rub it off onto you.”

“He’s not happy, he’s delusional.” Hands rubbed together with the anxiousness of what was to come. “Do you know what he said to me yesterday?”

“Are you allowed to be away from manning the helm of the Underworld for this long? Aren’t you going to be missed?” It was an obvious attempt to shift the nature of their conversation, Kunhang was in neither the mood nor spirit to argue the relationship status of his friend. Yukhei on the other hand wasn’t going to be swayed as easily.

“I don’t run the Underworld—” Yukhei moved to stand across from Kunhang, his hand laid atop the rough wood. He said he’d give up he’d do anything for her, Kunhang. He’s absolutely lost it,” hands wringing together, “He’s only known her for what, a year?”

“Two years today, or yesterday. Depending on what time it is up there.” The book closed with a quiet thud, leather sliding across rough wood as Kunhang looked to his elder. "What are you so up in arms about?"

"He wants to live up there," the walls of his study licked with shadows cast from several candles, "with her."

"So?" Kunhang yawned, leaning back in his chair so that the front legs sat a few centimeters off of the ground, "It's not like he hasn't done that before."

"That's not what I'm saying." Yukhei griped, voice increasingly angered as his friend hadn't quite grasped the severity of Dejun's wanted actions. "He wants to become a mortal for her, he told me of how he didn't wish to live an eternity without her once she dies."

"Oh shit," mouth parted, the chair slamming down onto its front legs , a small cloud of dust from the unswept floor rising into the air. "Does she not want to become immortal?"

"No," both of Yukhei's hands fell atop the table, his side leaned against it as he took a deep breath, "She doesn't want to be cursed like us, or however she put it." He felt torn inside from a loss he had yet to lose. Dejun had been his closest friend, his closest confidante and brother since they were children, the thought of losing him struck a fear into him he never could have comprehended prior to this. "I don't know what to do."

"The only thing you can," Kunhang spoke after a moment of silence, the only sound of the flames licking their wicks, "Let him do as he wishes. We're not the ones who can have a say on how he wants to live his life."

It wasn't the answer Yukhei wanted to hear, he wanted equal horror to what he was feeling. Wanted a shoulder to lean on for the fact that something he cherished may soon be gone from this world, time passed quickly for immortals, like sand through an hourglass Dejun would be a grain lost among the masses to the inevitability of Time. Time... The thought bitter on his tongue, as his fingers rapped atop the dark tabletop. Another deep breath before he pushed himself off of the table, quickly walking towards the doorway.

"Where are you going?" Kunhang's voice called after him through the rapidly shutting doors.

"I'm getting some air."

Yukhei found you in the gardens of your home, sitting in the shade of a large willow as the breeze gently whispered through its branches. His heart was heavy, slightly alleviated of the weight when his eyes caught yours and you motioned him over.

You noticed he looked tired, worn, words on his lips that he didn’t want to utter. And you would never pry, he’d never open up if you tried to unlock him like a chest. He sat beside you for a while in silence before turning and lying down, resting his head atop your thighs as he let out a sigh.

Fingers immediately moving to run through his black locks and the small knots that’d formed on his way up from the Underworld. “I saw your brother today,” thinking this may spur him to talk, Yukhei did speak fondly of Dejun, and he seemed nice enough from the handful of times you’d seen and spoke to him.

“Oh,” the thought fell colorlessly from his lips as his eyes closed, letting the sun warm him for a moment.

“Mhm,” Fingers then moved to twirl a few strands mindlessly, “with that girl we saw at the party? I can’t remember her name—”

“It isn’t important,” he sighed, listening to your breaths reverberate around the space he tried to find tranquil. But even the brightest of days let the darkness of his thoughts, the troubles plaguing him, bleed through.

“What’s wrong?” you stopped toying with his hair, a quizzical expression on your brow at the sullenness of his words and demeanor, you hadn’t seen him like this since the first you’d met him.

“Nothing,” a gentle shake of his head as he peeked an eye open to look up, “I just wanted to see you.”

“You’re always welcome here,” a smile, hand moving down to caress his cheek for a moment before moving it away to place atop the soft grass to your side.

He called your name almost so softly that you’d thought it the wind for a moment before looking down at him to find his eyes closed once more, lips parted as he sought out to speak a bit more. “You won’t ever leave me, right?”

**IX**

“You know, I’m not sure why he’s so feared.” Kun had opened his doors to you, even if you’d come in under the false pretense of bringing him some of his favored fruit from Jungwoo’s home. You’re not sure how you’d gotten onto the topic of the god of Death, even if it had been the real intention of your visit, it had actually been the god of Time that had brought him up in the first place. It had been some offhand comment about the wilting of one of his favorite shrubberies along the walkway to his home, thinking that Yukhei  _ must  _ be the cause of it.

“It’s not fear, it’s repulsion.” He scoffed as he picked a fruit, a pomegranate, from the basket you’d handed to him, “You’ve witnessed life enough to know the distaste most have for death and all that comes with it.”

“But that’s not his fault.” You frowned as you followed him further into the depths of his home, a strange collection of items both foreign and familiar decorating shelves and floors and walls. It was both nostalgic and discomforting.

“Isn’t it?” He asked, turning into one of the rooms, setting the basket down atop a table, the pomegranate placed back into the assortment. A hand to motion for you to sit, “As sate as he is now, he wasn’t always as such.”

“What do you mean?” Question formed as you moved to a deep blue settee, sitting on the corner of it as you didn’t expect this visit to take long. “You can’t believe the hearsay about him.”

“It would certainly aid his realm, wouldn’t it?” He mused, looking you over as if to say that you had no say in the conversation, but you weren’t going to idly sit by.

“The last time you visited the Underworld it was in a fledgling state, it’s not a place of repent and torture, it’s a place of rest.” You argued, hands wringing together in your lap as you leaned forward. 

A short laugh as Kun looked to one of his windows, down the rolling hills to the valley below, the sun sinking in the sky adding a golden luminance to the hilltops. “Is that what he conned you into thinking?”

“You’re insufferable. Give him a chance to show he’s not the monster you think him to be. He doesn’t want to be despised any longer.” His attention had turned back to you by the time you’d finished the thought, “He’s not as sinister as everyone makes him out as.”

“I’ll speak to him, but only out of the pity I have for you,” Kun sighed, you knew he had the best intentions but so many of the gods up here were flawed in their thinking. “Soon enough you’ll see his true nature, don’t come crying to me when he breaks your heart.”

A sigh of indifference as you sat back onto the sofa, “For as much distaste we Overworld gods put on the Underworld ones, I’d say we’re much more pessimistic than them at times.” 

**X**

Yukhei never expected to get cornered by another god, in fact, it was so unfathomable to him that when it did occur, he nearly laughed it off. Most were too timid to near, and those that weren’t were typically friends or just very emboldened people, the latter is what he expected this encounter to be.

The path to your home was familiar now, the way the trees that lined the dirt path eventually gave way to an expanse of field before his eyes could settle on the smooth, marblelike walls of your home standing prominently out in the nature that surrounded it. The vines, green and fruit-bearing, hugging the sides of the house, embracing it like a blanket at times. But that depended on the time of the year. Yukhei liked visiting in either the early morning or late evening, that’s not to say he didn’t enjoy your company at all times but he especially liked how the light looked as it shone gold through the columns and windows.

He was on this path to your home when a familiar, yet unfriendly, face had stopped him in his tracks. Yukhei had seen him from further down the path, thinking him some sort of wildlife (praying it wasn’t an alseid seeking out more torment) before edging closer and realizing it was the god of Love. Arrows sheathed and bow by his side as he approached cautiously, the look of his face hard to read in the rapidly diminishing sunlight.

“I spoke to Kun today,” Ten spoke calmly, gaze still hardened as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“Okay?” Brow furrowed as he looked to his elder, feigning an ignorance as the other stared at him with nothing but disdain.

“Do you know what he said?”

“Should I?”

A sigh, a frown, a hand run through his already tousled hair. Ten was frustrated, it was more than apparent on his features, “You neglect yourself, neglect your duties.” Vitriolic spite seeping from every syllable, sneer adorning the other’s lips, “You haven’t been home in weeks, at least that’s what Yangyang told me.” Lower lip caught between his teeth as he stopped himself from saying more, only to take a deep breath before he continued, “It’s blatantly obvious that you’ve deluded her into taking you in like a stray dog,” of all things divine he should know the ways of the heart, its follies and its saneness, “Warm your bed with some lampade, not with her because I know your intentions are anything but the best.” The hateful scowl receding into a frown on the deity’s face something Yukhei could have never imagined, he’d always thought Love to be kind, gentle rather than the anguished sorrow that plagued his visage now.

“You love her?” Both a question and a realization wrapped in a sentence too pained he hadn’t wanted it to spew from his lips. “Is that why you’re doing this?”

“Of course, I love her.” Answered as if the question had been as simple as ‘Is the sky blue?’ “But not like a disillusioned fool.”

"Will none of you Overworld gods allow me a day of peace? I'm not trying to do anything wrong."

"Let me correct you: you haven't done anything wrong  _ yet _ ."

The contempt that most had against Yukhei wasn't unfamiliar to the god of Death. But it never made the sting any less biting. “Get out of my way,” it wasn't an ask, wasn't a question as the taller shouldered his way past.

"She'll never forgive you if you do what I think you're planning," Ten called out after, maybe a warning, maybe a threat. Yukhei wasn't sure and he hadn't wanted to take anything he said with even a grain of salt.

When he wanders the halls of your home like a lost spirit as he looks for you, the surmounting feeling of dread overcame him. His hands shook, his mind racing faster than the phantom horses of the plains of Elysium did. He needed something to placate him, to remind him of the solidity of the moment. So when he caught sight of you in one of the bedrooms littered around his footsteps wordlessly carried him to you, his arms finding an embrace that he didn't know he longed so much for.

“Mine,” His breath hot on your skin, but sending chills shooting from your head to your toes. His hands set atop yours, the coolness of them a stark contrast to the whisper in your ear. “Please say you’re mine.” Yukhei had never had anything to truly call his own. Toys as a child strewn into the Styx, a pocket watch that had accompanied him for a century or so broken into pieces. Material need wasn’t an objective want that he’d ever sought out. Yet now you were that reverie of his, playing on his thoughts that only few others had done so before, pleasantly galivanting through the recesses of his mind while others rot in its depths. But you were something tangible, something grounding but oh so far from his grasp despite you being in his arms. The scent of summer on your skin and the warmth of a sun he’d grown to miss radiating from your smile. It was strange to be so nostalgic for a life he’d never once had.

The breath had been pulled from your throat, it felt as if his grasp were trying to merge himself with you, a strangled sort of laugh escaped you, unknowing why he was acting in such a possessive manner. "Of course I'm yours."

There was a desperation in his kiss, a longing to feel something more than the claustrophobic emptiness that he found himself entrapped in. Perhaps you would act as that escape, as you hadn’t pulled away from him but rather pressed yourself forward, ambling towards a great unknown as your feet hit the wall behind you before your back did.

He wanted to give you everything you deserved, a gentle, tender loving that was wrought with the kindness that you’d bestowed upon him on more than one occasion. But he had not the mental fortitude or willpower to do so at the time. His hands trailed down your sides, grabbing at your dress, the fabric bunched under his fingers as he sought to rid you of it. The fabric discarded, pooling on the floor, his shoes kicked off to some corner of the room you hadn't thought to look at as you caught a glint in his eye that wasn't there a moment prior. It was a hunger, a carnal one like that of a manged hound that had caught the scent of blood. But there was also a trepidation, a hesitance as his hand, lightly calloused on the palm, brushed over your shoulder, down your arm and to your wrist. It's when his hand trails over, resting on your hip, your breath once again caught in your throat as you find yourself stepping towards the bed, your hand finding his and pulling him along behind you.

The black linen of his shirt rough under your fingertips, the coarse material almost clinging to you. He moves to help you pull it over his head, "This is okay, right?"

Question asked maybe a little too late, but you appreciated the thought despite the tardiness, "Yes," a kiss placed onto his cheek before you let him push you back onto the bed, "it is."

You expected him to be more forceful, at least that's what the vibe you'd gotten from when he'd kissed you the way he did. Instead his fingers dance circles over the skin of your stomach, you can feel your heart racing the lower he trails them. He knelt by the bedside, his hands moving to remove your underwear, aided by you lifting your hips so they were easier to slide off.

His breath was warm, intermingling with the cool air as you felt yourself exposed, your cheeks reddening as if you were finally coming to about what was happening. The thought didn't last long before you felt his fingers slide up your leg and to your center. Wetness running slick on his fingers as he traces over you, gently circling your clit to relieve some of the tension building inside of you. A kiss placed to your inner thigh as he teases your entrance with a finger before plunging it inside of you. The kiss turned into a soft bite at the sounds you utter, harsh enough to leave a mark but weak enough as to not break the skin. Several more like marks engraved into your thighs as he adds another finger, fucking into you at a leisurely pace.

Your hand in his hair, hips lifted as the ball of tension in your stomach grows, “Yukhei,” the name left you like an airy praise, urging him forward as you find yourself rapidly coming undone on his fingers. Before you let him edge you over to your climax you remove your hand from his hair and place it atop his that was still positioning into you. "Yukhei, I need  _ you _ ," his eyes met yours, his pace slowing and eventually stopping as he pulled his digits out of you. The glint still there, perhaps a bit lessened at this point as you sat up reaching out to pull him against your lips. You smiled against him, the sound of his belt being unfastened and the slide of fabric echoed the space.

Lips parted when your hand trailed down, your fingers brushing over his cock gently running your hand over it. Soft panting as he hovers over you, a stutter, "Dì, I love you."

It wasn't the most romantic of places, but it may have been one of the more passionate professions that you'd heard in your entirety of being.

"I love you, too," breathless as you guided him to your entrance, "Now please, Yukhei, fuck me."

The feeling of him inside you, a passing uncomfortableness as you grew accustomed to him. He peppered kisses along your collarbone, the sound of your moans lost in the nighttime air as he began to move at a steady pace. When you look at him, a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his hair tousled from your hands running through it, your heart swells with a feeling as if it were trying to crawl up your throat. The scent of pine and a shiver snaking itself up your spine. He removed his lips from your chest, looking down at you like a beholden idol, his hips snapping into you as he'd begun to chase his own high. His hand moved to your breast, tweaking a nipple between two of his fingers while urging you not to try and quiet your voice. There wasn't anyone around to disturb the two of you, why not take that knowledge in stride?

It's not long before the both of you found yourselves toppling over the edge of ecstasy, your walls trying to milk him even more as he came inside of you. La petite mort was a never a term to have crossed your mind until you basked in the afterglow of bliss, a small death accompanying the apex of pleasure. Yukhei’s fingers traced over your stomach, the valley of your breasts before moving down your arm, feeling the raised skin, hip lips mouthed words unsaid and you were too stricken with pleasure to try and ever comprehend them as he pulled out of you.

There's a few words spoken between you that you can't quite recall, some more 'I love you's' intermingled with goodnight wishes as you soon found yourself falling into the depths of slumber.

When you awoke the next morning, Yukhei wasn't in bed, instead you found him half-dressed and sitting in one of the armchairs near the fireplace in your main study. You'd pulled on his linen shirt from the night prior to shield yourself from the coolness of morning, a yawn escaped your lips to signal your arrival, "Good morning, my love."

He smiled at the name, holding out his hand for you to take as you approached, "Good morning."

"Why are you up so early?" You questioned, letting him take your hand into his, sitting down on the arm of the chair.

"I was just thinking." His gaze turned towards the flames that lay low in the fireplace, having been burning all night they were nearly just embers now.

"About?" You posited, sending him a wayward glance.

“I want to help Dejun get rid of his delusions,” He spoke after a moment more of watching the dying flame, “her presence is a plague on his soul. If you could help me—” His hand squeezing yours gently as he returned to look at you.

“Are you asking me to be complicit in the detriment of your brother?" You hand went limp in his, lower lip bitten as you were trying to decipher what exactly he was asking of you.

“Detriment? He’s trying to kill himself, shouldn’t I stop him?" Yukhei had told you of his brother's plans the last time the two of you had met. He'd been in such a disarray it had been hard for him to explain it properly to you. While you didn't agree with Dejun's decision, you most certainly didn't agree with Yukhei's full abhorrent attitude towards his brother's decision either.

“I understand that you love your brother, but promise me, promise me that you won’t meddle with this Yukhei. It’s his life, his choice.” You brought his hand to your lips, placing a chaste kiss atop his knuckles.

“Everyone’s been telling me to let go, haven't I told you that?” A frown painted on his lips, harsh line cutting across the usually calm visage. “I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want things to change.”

“Yukhei,” a frown mirroring him as you wondered how a god so worn by time and passing faces could be so naive to the way that beings succumbed to the universe. Change was inevitable, just as the seasons and phasing moon changed in due time. “Just don’t do anything too irrational, promise?”

“I promise,” warm words mumbled into the air, as he squeezed your hand once more, "Why don't we get some breakfast? I'm starving."

**XI**

“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee   
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;   
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow   
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.”

Ten’s voice read, flipping nonchalantly through a worn book that had been laying on his étagère when you’d walked into his home. While dog-eared in parts, the book seemed to be well preserved internally despite the scratched leather exterior. Ten hadn’t questioned the nature of your visit, nor the urgency at how quickly you wished for the two of you could meet. You could surmise that he had an inkling of a notion as to why you’d shown up to his door bedraggled and worn by the poem of choice. You made no move to question it, too tired to argue against it.

“Donne sure had a flair for the dramatic,” Ten mused, shutting the book with a fluid motion of his hand only to set it down on the table next to a still steaming cup of tea. “I wonder if he was always that emotional?”

Your eyes widened as you realize he was speaking to you, your hand lightly tracing circles into the cushion of his loveseat, “Wouldn’t you be the one to know that?” Voice unintentionally bittered, you were fighting a battle he had no part in.

He drank nonchalantly while a mass of guilt, or perhaps it was apprehension, settled down onto your shoulders, “I don’t constantly look over those I’ve inspired. Although I do like to hear what they say about me.” There’s a flicker of a smile on his lips before it disappears as soon as it had come. Brow furrowing at your grimace he leaned forward, placing the cup down adjacent to the book. “Why are you here in the dead of night?”

It takes a moment, a shaky breath of air as the trembling of your fingers is almost too much to contain. “Does he love me?”

Mouth parted, “I think his perception of love is so warped he doesn’t know how to truly love someone.”

“Do you think so or do you know?” Eyes only staring into yours with a deep-rooted sorrow, your heart had already been dangling on a thread and it seemed to slip from the twine and shatter on the floor of your rib cage in that instant. “I’m a fool.” Gaze answer enough to feel the pitfalls of anguish wash over you, you feel played, wronged. “I take it you heard what he’s done to his brother? What I helped him do to Dejun—”

“You had nothing to do with that,” A shake of his head as he stood, moving over to you to kneel by your side.

“I could’ve stopped him. I could’ve not vied for his repentance from Kun, I could’ve—”

Voice low, his hand rested atop your knee in an attempt to calm your already unsettled nerves. “No. He’s done this out of love even if you can’t see that.” It’s not as if the Underworld was a loveless place, but it saw the end of amor, but also the longevity of it through beings that found each other in different lives. “Like I said he does love, but it’s such a selfish beast in itself that it’ll never be what you want it to.”

“What do I do?” a well of tears threatening to spill hot down your cheeks as you looked to Ten. It almost broke his heart, enraged him to a point where if he could wrung the lessened life out of Death he would have. “I love him,” a weakened sigh, “I love him, but I can’t forgive him for this.”

**XII**

The way to the Underworld wasn’t as familiar as you thought it was, you’d foraged your way to the stone wall, the rocky crag that you’d entered on your first and only visit. In all honesty you thought it the wrong place even after you’d ventured in, only realizing that you weren’t incorrect by the visages of spirits that had begun to emerge out of the gloom.

“Tell me what I heard is wrong, Yukhei.” No time wasted in the pleasantries, your heart sunk as you watched his puzzled look turn to one of that of recognition and shame. “Tell me you didn’t ask Kun to—” But you already knew the truth, it was just that a small fragment within your heart wished him to make it untrue.

“I did.” Voice solemn, quiet as the air that encased the two of you.

“Why?” Hand clenched, no fathomable reason for his actions “Why would you betray your brother like that?”

“I was never meant to allow anyone around me a happy existence, was I?” Yukhei spoke into the ether, not particularly looking at you, rather past and into the void of the air. “All I do is decay and let the things I have an inkling of affection for wither away. If he chose mortality then one day I’d have to watch him die, you know I can’t do that.” The sun and blooming life that was you failing to see past the veneer of shadow and into the inlet plumes of death that he was threaded from.

“But that choice isn’t one for you to make, that’s his choice. You deceived me and everyone else into this.”

“If you want me to apologize I can but it cannot change what’s already been done.”

“Are you not going to tell him the extent of which you’ve wronged him? Does he even know what you’ve done?”

“With someone who’s existence is as oneiric as yours you can’t fully expect me to explain this to you, can you? You play and dance in the sunlight, oblivious to the world and the problems it’s saturated in.”

“Don’t you dare try and tell me that I have no idea what goes on here,” “You dwell in the sunlight to hide from your problems in the dark. You’re just cruel at this point,” be it unwillingly, ignorantly so.

“Cruel?” He postulated, “Am I cruel for loving and wanting to keep my family together?”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” the fondness you bear for him grows in you like a sickness, in vain kalopsia and unrequited affection. Yet you know this affection grips your heart like a vice when you’re meant to be angry at him, angry at the betrayal of his own blood whom you’d come to know as a kinder light in the depths of the Underworld. You cannot hate him, hate Yukhei, for the wrongs he has committed. If anything, you pity him, a melting of the tension that had bore its way into your muscles as a worm did into the soft earth. Yukhei may be hundreds, thousands of years old, but he was still naive to the way in which the living worked and loved. Naive or too reluctant to learn, you didn’t want to think on it much as the god stood before you, 

“There is so much you don’t know, Yukhei. So much that I have tried to teach you but I—” a downward glance to the dirt under you as you can bear to look at him no longer, “I don’t think I’m the person to help you.”

The anger in Yukhei’s face loosened at your words, a panicked expression overcoming him as he reached a hand out to you, “What do you mean?”

“I’m saying that we have to end,” words bittering on your tongue, as his hands grasp at the cloth of your sleeves, “whatever this is. If I stay around you for much longer I fear that I may come to resent you more and more.”

“You don’t mean that,” The small frown he’d had fallen from his face such as the snow does from burdened branches as soon as the air starts to warm. It turned to fraught worry almost instantaneously, “Please— you can’t leave me too.”

“Would you have left me as woefully ignorant as Dejun if I hadn’t found this out myself?”

“I—” his voice faltered, cracking under the strain of a lie already grown too large to keep buried for this long. “You can’t leave me too, please,” the plea fell on deaf ears, for by the time he’d come to from his rapture of disbelief you were already gone, gone from his home, gone from him.

The doldrums of anger and anguish that scorch through his veins must be some residual, or perhaps, untapped morose that he had not thought himself low enough to even muster. Maybe it had been him who was cursed, not from the utter betrayal he’d imposed upon both you and his brother, but from the mere conception of his very existence he was never meant for a complacent life among the living and thriving. He was doomed to an eternity of loneliness, of the rot and pestilence of death and the Underworld that clung to him then more so than ever before.

**XIII**

It was well past one when he awoke, mind still cloudy with sleep, the sun slanting in through what he remembered to be drawn shades. A huff of air escaping from his lips as he turns on his side, cautious enough not to wake the figure sharing his bed. Dark blooms of purple dotted her neck, his fingers gently traced over them before he sat up in bed. He could tell that she was already awake by the way her shoulders flexed as he had touched her.

“There’s some sort of salve that I got from that one weird apothecary.” Stifling of a yawn, as he moves to stand, “you can use some to clear those up before you leave.”

“Kicking me out so early?” Voice turned sultry as his hand is grasped, slender fingers intertwining with his as the nymph shoots him a wide-eyed glare to keep him in her grip for a moment longer. Lilac eyes ringed with blue as her lower lip protrudes outwards in a childish pout. “I was here a while longer the last time I slept over.” His hand retracts away, her disappointment more so prevalent before she sits up as well, the blankets falling away to reveal her barren body.

Yukhei fails to remember that certain tryst, most melded together and meant nothing more than a rush of dopamine and surge of ability to forget himself for a moment. “The last time you stayed over I didn’t have plans,” feet planted and walking across the wooden floor, shuffling to a wardrobe nestled into the corner of the room. “I’m not fucking you again.”

Since his betrayal, Yukhei had become more and more accustomed to dwell among the realm of the living, finding the confines of Tartarus increasingly unbearable with his brother’s presence, even if Dejun was rarely present. Yukhei was guilt ridden even if he acted in what he thought was a justifiable manner, the dawning of how his actions had hurt and gnarled the relationships he’d come to treasure only coming with time. But he swallowed that pain for the most part, with every attempt to reconcile coming with a newly awakened fire of distrust.

Most of the Underworld dwellers had made out his excursions to be him trying to come to terms with mortality and the human race, perhaps some sort of repentance for his sins against his brother. He felt choked when he went home, a smoke in his lungs that would only lift when he’d left. A cocksureness finding suit in the libertine nature that he’d fallen into, into the beds of strangers unknown, it was one of the only times he felt unencumbered by the weight of his duties and unsworn oath he’d been born into.

“Not even if I say please?” Rummaging for clothes done by both parties, Yukhei through his closet and the other for the clothes scattered about the room.

A laugh falling from him, “ _ Especially _ if you say please.” Maneuvering his feet into the legs of his pants, pulling it up and then buttoning and zipping them.

“Since when have you gone soft?” Shaking of her head, locks of golden hair falling into her face as she scoffs, “Whatever.”

“You nymphos and your Messalina complexes will only find you ruin.” He tutted, reaching for his belt and beginning to slide it through the multitude of loops on his pants. 

“And pleasure,” a lofty shrug of her shoulders as she pulls her shirt over her head. “You’ve got your disposition for death, and I’ve got mine for sex. Don’t try and tell me how I’m supposed to live until you find me at the Underworld’s gates.” Even if she wouldn't be living at that point, but whatever, Yukhei wasn't going to get caught up in the technicalities. 

Reaching into the closet he procures one of his various black linen shirts, beginning to button it up once his arms find their place in the sleeves, “Oh, planning on heading there soon?”

A soft exhalation as she planted her feet onto the floor, striding over and then standing in front of him. “Not particularly,” Her hand swatting his away as she moved to help him button the last few he had left, leaving the top two untouched as he tucked the hem of his shirt into his pants.

“Seems like you are by the way you’re still in my apartment,” Now his hands move to remove hers, “I can expedite that for you, if you want.”

“You’re such an asshole,” she scoffed, tucking a few strands of her hair behind her ear as if to try in a futile attempt to entice him back to the bed once more.

“You can thank the gods for that.” Yukhei smiled, brushing past her so he could make his way to a chest of drawers on the other side of the room. His eyes looked out the window, looking downwards to catch a glimpse of the cars below passing. They almost look like ants from how far up he was.

It took another half an hour of goading to get the nymph out of his apartment, a plethora of lofty sighs and enticements meant to deter him away from his tasks falling on deaf ears. Another glance outside as he finished lacing up his shoes, the clouds hung low, gray and looming. The elevator in the hall took far too long to climb the floors to the top, Yukhei was leaning back on his heels as the doors slid open, the cabin empty. Rain was almost imminent; he could taste it in the air as he stepped out into the cold winds.

Kunhang's waiting for him outside, leaning against a lamppost as he scrolls through his phone, laughing at something that'd popped up onto his screen. 

"What're you doing?" Yukhei asked as Kunhang locked his phone and turns towards him, slipping the device into his coat pocket. His face was flushed, nose running as if he'd been standing in the cold longer than he should've been.

"Playing a new game, it's pretty fun," his friend mused, eyebrow raised, "probably not as fun as what, or should I say who, you were doing." 

A snort as Yukhei shook his head, "I don't need you commenting on my sex life too." His hand rummaging around his coat pocket, fingers hitting a familiar box. He extracts it, flipping the carton open and placing one of the cigarettes on his lips as he slides the box back into his pocket and reaches for his lighter. The hiss of the ignition, the plume of smoke, another question, "Let's get a drink."

"Yukhei it's," phone pulled out, screen brightened as Kunhang looks at him incredulously, "three pm."

Drag taken as his eyes trail to the sky, a chill of wind racing down the street, hard enough to try and shift him off of his feet, "It's fucking cold, Kunhang, Besides, it's five a o'clock somewhere." 

The bar sat in some seedy alley across from a diner that Kunhang and Yukhei frequented, nestled away in the depths of the city it was known by locals and the odd traveler that found themselves lost there. It was old, older than the city but not quite as old as the gods who were travelling there. Both of the gods could recall when it was a standalone trading post some several hundred years ago, and both had been there enough since that the bartender knew them by name. They still weren’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. But Yukhei’s pulled from these thoughts as he was about to turn down the familiar alleyway with Kunhang, something told him to look down the street, it was a strange prick on the back of his neck to crane his neck because something was coming.

When he sees you, walking down the street with no care in the world he thinks it a hallucination, almost unreal. But then it hurts, stings against his side, it feels as if he’s been shot for the second time in his existence. The first time had been some drunken duel in the early twentieth century, he can’t remember entirely. He does remember the searing pain that radiated from the entry wound on his left side, the way it crawled over his skin as the scorching heat only became worse. His blood had flowed golden, through his fingers as he stood, shakily, on his two feet trying to find the perpetrator in the darkness of night. He never figured out who it was, the injury was too important to not attend to.

“Kunhang, I’ll meet you inside,” this time, it feels as if he’s been shot in the heart. His breath in his throat as the familiar burn tears through the organ. The response of his friend unheard as he stands, dumbfounded at the possibility that it was actually you.

You’d paused when you saw him, some anxiety gripping at your senses as he approached. Even if you’d wanted to, you’re not sure you could’ve moved. But now he’s standing in front of you, eyes looking into yours as his mouth parts with words he hasn’t yet formed. Instead of waiting, you take the first leap. 

“If you were staring at me any harder I maybe just thought you wanted to talk,” Your voice has some sort of grounding ephemera in his ears, it was you, you were here. “It’s going to rain, isn’t it?” Your brow furrowing up at the clouds slowly creeping their way atop the city skyline, edges of gray to blot out the blue. It was deep set into your bones, the wrath of water and the aches that came with it, with time you grew a little older, a little wiser, you wonder if he had too.

“Why are you here?” It wasn’t the first question on his mind, but it was one that was plaguing him as much. He had tried to find the furthest point away from you, to not be tempted after trying and failing to rein in your affection once more.

A gentle hum, “I think you know why.”

“Is that— what you’re doing to Dejun now— is that your doing?” The words were hard to come by, there was something caught in his throat as he tried to speak, as he tried to put the puzzle pieces together. 

“Who else would it be?” So he had heard, or maybe even seen Dejun and the girl at some point together.

“What I did out of love, of brotherly love. I couldn’t let himself throw his life away like that.” Furious tinge to his voice as his hands slid into his winter coat, “You know, he could be happy if you stopped interfering in his life. You don’t have any right to do so.”

“And you don’t have the right either!” If you were guilty of intrusion into a curse you had no hand in, he was just as reprehensible, “You never accept her soul and only add to his punishment. It was only supposed to last a decade, Yukhei, not several hundred years. I am letting him love still while you try and tear him away from his past when all he wants to do is relish in it.”

“Because  _ you  _ reincarnate her every time,” his tongue swiped over his bottom lip, nose beginning to redden. “Dejun’s an allucinator, always in dreams and never here. And on the occasion that he is present, he’s pining over a girl who will never love him back.”

“Sounds familiar,” muttering under your breath, but you can see that Yukhei heard you by the way he shifts uncomfortably on his feet, his hands absentmindedly moving in his pockets. “If you talk to him and come clean about what you’ve been doing, maybe,  _ maybe _ I’ll hear out anything else you have to say. Now go back to your friend before he thinks I’ve kidnapped you.”

The musty smell of the bar, already permeated into every regular patron and piece of furniture, sinks into Yukhei’s skin. A rub of his nose as Kunhang returns to the small table they share, two large pints of beer in hand as he saddles up back to his side of the table. “I’m as much of a rowdy, bar-brawling badass as the next guy, I swear.” Kunhang notes, glancing around the bar as he takes a drink from his glass, frowning at the weak brew before setting it atop the sticky tabletop. “But why the fuck are we here?” A wave of smoke easing over the main room as the doors to the kitchen swing open.

Why were they here? Yukhei looks to his surroundings, the familiar and foreign faces flooding the space. It was unusually crowded for a weekday afternoon, the bustle of patrons normally coming in around the late evening. Eyes returning to the quizzical gaze of his friend, “I’m going to see my brother today.”

“No shit? Me too.” Kunhang muses, eyebrow piqued at the idea. “Well, I may have to return a key I stole from him, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

Yukhei looks at him curiously for a moment, not wanting to think too strenuously on the topic. “I saw him a few months ago and I don’t even think he recognized it was me.” Head shaking as he takes a long drink from his beer, amber liquid only settling down once the glass was put back atop the table. “That girl,” a twinge on the corner of his mouth, “she’s back.”

“That’s what he said when I last spoke to him,” Kunhang nods, moving ever so slightly as one of the bar patrons pushes against the bench behind Him. “I told you what Yangyang told me though, right? That Dejun can’t get close to her or something? He overheard Kun talking about it with Sicheng.”

“You did,” a sigh falling from his lips as another push jostles Kunhang, unsettling his hand still wrapped around the pint and causing a portion of the liquid to slosh on the tabletop. Perhaps Yukhei was more well versed on the curse than his own brother at this point, “Do you think I fucked up that much?”

“I’d say you fucked up more than I’ve ever seen someone else fuck up. And I’ve been alive for eons Yukhei, eons.” Hand releasing the pint, he flicks his wrist a few times before brushing it onto his pants to rid himself of the alcohol he was now coated in. “He’s not going to forgive you anytime soon.”

“I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I was doing the right thing I couldn’t have let him die like that.” Another jostle. “Could you try and stop moving so much?” An angered tinge to Yukhei’s voice as he calls out to the rowdy patron. “We’re trying to talk without you interrupting us every five seconds.” A mumbling of an apology drowned out in the chaos of the room. Yukhei’s head falls into his hands, fingers tousling the tangled locks as he shakes his head, “It happened hundreds of years ago, don’t you think he should’ve given up on her by now?”

“Isn’t that a part of his curse though, he can’t do that?” Kunhang questions as he shifts in his seat, “He brings her up in almost every conversation I have with him.”

“I don’t know.” There was some sort of jealous pang running through Yukhei knowing that his friend could have a normal conversation with his brother whereas he hadn’t had one in centuries.

“Where are you going to meet him anyway? Do you know where he lives?”

“He’s going out with that girl and a few other kids from a class they have together,” He’d gotten the information from another student he’d bumped into on the campus grounds. At times he felt stupid having to wear the guise of a mortal college student, but it was all to keep an eye on Dejun. “A public place would be best for that kind of thing, don’t you think?”

“If he wants to put you into an eternal slumber I don’t think a handful of mortals gawking at the two of you would change anything.” The other frowned, taking a sip of his drink before speaking once more, “Why do you care so much about it now?”

“Remember when I told you a while ago that I wanted to make things right?”

“Vaguely, if I remember you were drunk out of your mind though.” The god of Mischief ponders, “That was what, Copenhagen?  _ Decades  _ ago.”

Yukhei ignores the latter portion of the sentence to save face, “It doesn’t make my words any less untruthful though.” A sigh, his fingers finding the tabletop, digits running over the roughened wood. “If I’m to love maybe I shouldn’t have hindered anyone else's.”

“Love?” Kunhang frowns, thankful that the movements of his seat had ceased for a moment. “Who do you love, Wong Yukhei?” There’s another quip hiding behind his pursed lips, he sated it before it could slip by, this wasn’t the time for witticisms.

“It’s taken me too long to realize that’s what it was, but I suppose it was doomed from the start.” “I fell in love with Life itself.”

“Life and Death, huh? That’s almost sickeningly poetic.” He muses, finger tapping atop his phone on the tabletop. “How long has that been going on?”

A mumbled, “About the same as Dejun’s issue.” 

Kunhang laughs, too loudly but he doesn’t care. He wipes away the tear forming in the corner of his eye before shaking his head in disbelief, “You’re such a hypocrite, Xuxi. You can’t criticize your own brother when you’ve been pining after someone for just as long.” His demeanor fades, rather than a coy smile decorating his lips, the bemusement falling into a solemn frown, “It’s the twenty-first century, maybe it’s time to end this bad blood between you and your brother.”

**XIV**

The sun shone in through the front windows, shedding light onto a bushel of hyacinths you’d been meaning to attend to for the past fifteen minutes. But you were trying to tie a small bow on the handle of a wicker basket placed atop the shop counter, somehow you were failing spectacularly at it but you were never the type to give up. Ribbon slipping through your fingers for what felt like the sixth time in three minutes, you let out a disgruntled sigh as you let the fabric fall onto the wooden counter. 

“Who’d have thought the goddess of Life would own the best flower shop in the city?” Attention too rapt on the handle, as if you were able to will the bow to tie, you’d barely noticed the figure that slipped into the shop. “Can’t say I’m surprised, it is very you.”

“Ten,” a smile brought to your lips as the tinkling of the door’s bells sounded as it fell back into place. “I thought you’d never come to see me again.” You turn away from your project to find your friend standing in the entrance of your shop.

“My favorite muse?” He shakes his head in faux vehemency, opening his arms up to you, “How could I possibly live without that?”

“I hardly doubt I’m your favorite. But you can admit it’s been a while,” you laugh, walking over to his embrace for a moment before breaking away. 

“Yes,” something of a saddened smile as he looks to a bundle of white tulips on a nearby table, “it has.”

“Well, what brings you in?” Hand on your hip you look him over, he hadn’t changed much since the last you saw him. Maybe his hard was a shade or three lighter. “Another lover? Need a few more roses?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’ve been painting again, haven’t you?” A finger raised, pointing at the little speck of blue right above his eyebrow, “You’ve got some on your forehead.”

“Ah,” He laughs, brushing his finger atop the dried fleck. “I’d say you’ve caught me but it actually wasn’t my doing.”

“Your muse’s then,” you note, raising your eyebrow at him.

“Well, yeah— Anyway, that’s not the reason I’m here.” “Yangyang brought me a message from Youngho and when I asked him where he was heading next he said he was coming to bring you a letter. And me being the only best friend that you have, I thought I could deliver it instead.”

“A letter?” Head tilting as you wondered who was still outdated enough to handwrite a letter. “From who?”

“That old flame of yours, Yukhei.” Letter procured from the depths of his tailored jacket, you notice that the waxen seal had already been broken.

“You read it?” Snatching the paper from his hand, unfolding it as you began to read over the few sentences in the god’s scrawled handwriting. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“Do we have laws regarding mail theft?” Ten wonders aloud, “Do we even have laws?” When he notices your furrowed brow he speaks up, “Why does he want to talk? Do you think it’s about his brother?”

It had been a few months since your last encounter with the god of Death, you can’t even begin to imagine what would cause him to call you out when he’d been silent for centuries. “I don’t know.”

**XV**

The coffee shop was quiet, quaint, and even had Satie’s ‘Gymnopedie’ playing as you walked in. It smelled of freshly roasted coffee beans and an assortment of baked goods that you could see under a glass case by the register. As you look around the space you could see Yukhei looking up at you from one of the tables tucked away in the back of the shop, he raised his hand in a wave and it took almost everything inside of you to not wave back. Instead you offer him a quick nod before you turn to the register to make your order.

Eyes trained on the plumes of white emerging in the tea as you pour a little bit of milk into your cup. The scent of tobacco wafting over the table from your seatmate, he’d undoubtedly smoked before your arrival and you were becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the scent of it as he swirled his straw in his iced americano. Air silent as you add a bit of sugar into your tea and gently stir it, the occasional clink of the metal hitting porcelain before you pull the spoon from the mix and set it atop a nearby napkin. Neither of you had said a word yet, apparently waiting for the other to make the first move.

Yukhei can see the throes of discontentment on your face as you sip at your tea, subtle lines that creased on your forehead as your eyes met his, the tightening of your grasp on the handle of the teacup. He didn’t want to make you feel this way, he never had.

“So, how have you been?” Yukhei coughs into his hand after he speaks, clearing his throat. He looks to you like an expectant child.

“Fine.” You say curtly, teacup tet onto the table with a soft thud, the liquid inside sloshing a bit. Was your hand shaking?

“Do you live in the city?”

“I own a flower shop on Juniper Street,” nodding, finding it hard to make eye contact with him as the song overhead changed to Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata.’

“Really?” The smile on his lips feeling as if its cutting into you, even if there wasn’t any malintent behind it. “I live over on Waybright, you know the Hayes building?”

“Why am I not surprised that you’re in the highest apartment in this city?”

“Because I like the view?”

“I was thinking because it’s the furthest you can be from the Underworld,” It’s a cold laugh that escapes Yukhei before you continue, “How’d you afford it?”

“With over 113 billion people dead in this world, it’s fairly easy to tap into the ferryman’s gold supply and go relatively unnoticed.” He leans back in his chair ever so slightly at his statement, a small smirk playing on his lips as if he were recalling the memory.

“So you’ve become a thief?” You muse, tapping your foot on the ground.

“Is it thievery if they’re already dead?” It sounded like a genuine question, as if he’d never thought about it before.

A shake of your head as your finger trails the rim of your teacup, “Why did you ask me to come out? You said it was urgent.”

Demeanor changing, “Will you never forgive me?”

“I forgave you a long time ago.”

“Then why didn’t you say something?” “I have loved you for hundreds of years, hundreds of dead years to find no reciprocated feelings from you.”

“Loved me?” A laugh, cold and barking escapes you as you look at the painting of a woman above your table instead of locking eyes with Yukhei. "You called my existence oneiric, right? Isn’t that what you said?” the words bitter on your tongue as you turn and see the remorse dwell behind his eyes. He hadn’t ever meant to say such harsh, biting words to you. They’d slipped out in a moment of anguish, but the tears in your chest they’d cause still stung to this day. 

“I didn’t mean it.” Defiance in his voice as his fingers fan out from his once closed fist. “What am I supposed to do? These feelings of anguish and penance plague me constantly and at times you’re all I can think of,” there’s an urgency, a pleading in his voice for you to act as the interpreter of his maladies, to sate the rumblings of a heart dowered. “I’ve apologized to Dejun, what more can I do to win your heart back?”

“Yukhei,” a shake of your head as you move to grab your bag from the seat beside you. You push yourself up from the table, looking down to him, “There is no us anymore. There hasn’t been for years. I’m glad you resolved things with your brother but that doesn’t automatically mean things are going to go back to the way they were—”

“I love you,” his hand finds your wrist before you’re able to step away from the table, past him and to the shining glass door that led outside, the familiar ache of him resonating around your chest as a frown bubbles to your lips. He notices this and drops his grasp away from you and moves to stand, “And you just want me to, what, throw away my feelings?”

“You used me,” you hiss through your teeth, trying to keep your voice low in the quiet of the coffee shop. “It’s taken centuries for you to clean up your act from a mess that you dragged me into and nearly lost your brother to, what do you want me to do?”

“But I  _ have  _ lost him, I don’t know that our relationship will ever be the same again now that she’s back for good. Even if she and he say they’ve forgiven me I know in their hearts they won’t ever let it rest for good.”

“And you still fail to let him be himself,” hands clenching at your sides, you sigh and with a shake of your head speak once more, “I shouldn’t have let you talk me into this.”

“He’s been summoned by the old gods.” The words leave him, a ringing around your ears as you can almost feel the weight he bears for a moment. An unsteady breath, a slight tremble coursing through him as he tries to shake his hand to rid himself of it. “When they realized that I lied to him, to  _ them _ what do you think they’ll do to me?”

“Are you trying to tell me that I’m implicated in all of this?” When Ten had told you the news earlier in the day you hadn’t put this together, or perhaps he’d worded it so that you wouldn’t know to the full extent that Yukhei (and perhaps now even you) were involved.

“I’m not saying that you’ll be in trouble, but when they call on you, I just want you to tell them the truth.”

“The actual truth or your version of it?” Your voice bitter as you glare at him.

“Dejun didn’t know that his punishment wasn’t supposed to last this long, the old gods don’t know that I, that  _ we _ , extended it. Can we talk about this somewhere else?” Eyes glancing around and settling on one of the patrons, his gaze wary as if the old man a few tables away was eavesdropping. 

“I’m going to tell them what we did,” you say, brushing past him and heading towards the entrance, hearing his footsteps trailing behind you as you exit the shop. “I’m going to tell them what we did and we’ll just have to live with whatever consequence they deem just.”

“You can’t believe that Sicheng of all people is going to be just. Can you?”

“Well he  _ is  _ the god of Justice, you know.” Feet stopped, you turn now to face him. Yukhei has to stop quickly so as to not run into you.

You stare at him and he stares back at you, heart twanging and aching with the love that you once held for the god. For the affection and yearning that had haunted you for years after your parting from him. But his reluctance to aid his brother, the way he had handled everything since had only driven you further from him. When your faces inch closer you don’t stop yourself when your lips press to his, lingering for a moment before breaking away, his head chasing after you momentarily before he pulls back as well.

“Yukhei,” the lasting taste of cigarette ash on his breath, your brow softened, sighing as you can’t find it within yourself to be spiteful towards him any longer, “just because I forgive you doesn’t mean I love you. And just because your brother gets a happy ending from the mess you caused doesn’t make you some sort of martyred hero.”

“And what if I don’t want to let you go?” Voice quiet, whispering. His fingers playing with the fabric of your shirt as you look at him, a sad smile on your lips.

“Just let me go.” It’s not so much as a plea but more so a statement of you wanting to relinquish your own hold on him. On what the two of you had been. Your hand gently removes his from the hem of your shirt before both of your hands fall to your side, as you look up to him, “I’ll see you at the hearing.”

Yukhei watches you walk away until you’re a few blocks down and turn a corner and out of sight. And then the aching reality of it hits him. After all this time some things just weren’t salvageable. He wants to tear himself apart, separate the flesh and muscle from bone, to distance himself from the essence of what he was. He’s learning again why he never held those he cared for closer than an arm’s length away, he’s learning that those that come to love him find that affection withering and barren at the end of the day.

And even if he’d sought to rid himself of that lonely existence, it would never be a tangible realization for what is already dead may never die and he would live with these consequences for the rest of eternity. 

  
  



End file.
